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When I saw fresh quarters of lamb of in the supermarket, I decided
that it was worth the price. The butcher sliced off the chops and cut
the shoulder and breast into thin pieces about 3 inches across. Not the
way I would have liked it cut, but try to argue with a determined
butcher who’s already pushing the meat through his electric slicer.
I froze the chops for grilling later and looked at the rest of the
cut-up meat. Lots of little pieces with bone in them. Cooked slowly in
wine, they would make a fine, light stew. Could be worse.
My usual way with lamb is to surround it with aromatic herbs like
rosemary and thyme, garlic and dried fruit. But I have this bag of
peeled chestnuts, bought with some abandoned recipe in mind. I wondered,
how would lamb go with chestnuts?
Sighing, I picked up a nearby cookbook by Claudia Roden and looked
lamb up in the index. Lo and behold – lamb with chestnuts. I cheered up.
The dish looked interesting and easy. And so it is, if you have
pre-peeled chestnuts.
Mrs. Roden’s recipe calls for cooking the meat in water, but I substituted dry red wine for it. I also couldn’t resist adding something fruity,
so I found my jar of dried citrus peels and dropped a strip of orange
peel into the stew. It was all cooked up in my tajine, and I discovered
all over again how delicious lamb cooked with cinnamon tastes.
This lamb dish is slow-cooked in Mediterranean spices. (Photo: Miriam Kresh/Unpacked)
Prep15mins
Cook Time1hr30mins
Yield6
Ingredients
2lbscubed lamb meat (3 lb. if there are lots of bones)
1large red onion
4tbspolive oil
1 ½tspcinnamon
½-1tspground allspice (I used 4 whole allspice berries)
1long strip of dried orange peel (or peel a fresh orange, trimming away all the pith and rind, then quarter it)
1 ½lbchestnuts
3tbspchopped parsley
3-4cupsdry red wine
Juice of ½ lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
If the meat has a lot of fat on it, trim off most of it. Leave some on for flavor and texture, though.
Chop the onion and in a large pot (or tajine) sauté it in the oil.
When the onion is soft, add the meat and cook it until it’s browned, turning it over occasionally.
Add the dry spices; stir.
Add the orange peel or prepared fresh orange.
Pour in the wine and bring the whole dish to a simmer.
Cook the meat on a low flame for 2 hours or until fork-tender.
About 15 minutes before you’ll want to turn off the flame, add the chestnuts and lemon juice. Stir.
Scatter
plenty of chopped parsley over the dish before serving, not only to add
a fresh, herbal taste, but also to make the dish more attractive.
Rice or couscous are classic additions to this stew, as indeed to any.
Enjoy!
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APARTHEID'S LAST PRESIDENT FW DE KLERK HAS PASSED AWAY AGED 85
Frederik Willem de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid president, leaves a legacy that will continue to be debated, contested and defended.
FILE: Frederik Willem de Klerk (FW de Klerk), the former president who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993, answers questions about his memories of Nelson Mandela, on 11 July 2017, in his office in Cape Town. Picture: AFP.
CAPE TOWN – The apartheid era's last president, FW de Klerk, has passed away at the age of 85.
He passed way in the early hours of the morning at his home after a battle with cancer.
"It is with the deepest sadness that the FW de Klerk Foundation must announce that former President FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye earlier this morning following his struggle against mesothelioma cancer. Mr De Klerk was 85 years old. He is survived by his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan and his grandchildren," read a statement by the FW de Klerk Foundation.
Frederik Willem de Klerk leaves a legacy that will continue to be debated, contested and defended.
“The prohibition of the African National Congress, the Pan-Africanist Congress, the South African Communist Party and a number of subsidiary organisations is being rescinded.”
With these words, at the opening of the last apartheid Parliament on 2 February 1990, De Klerk unleashed a chain of events that would see Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa, four years later, in a landslide victory for the ANC.
South Africa would never be the same again.
There will be those who will mourn the loss of a leader who realised the apartheid project was unsustainable and that the future of the Afrikaner people depended on a negotiated settlement.
“The country would be an entirely different place if he had not succeeded in doing what he set out to do, and achieved. It’s as simple as that,” said chairperson of the FW de Klerk Foundation Dave Steward .
FILE: Apartheid President Frederik W. De Klerk (centre) smiles while ANC leader Nelson Mandela (right) and IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi shake hands after they signed an agreement at the Union Buildings in Pretoria 19 April 1994. Pik Botha, South African Foreign Affairs Minister (C, 2nd row) looks on. Picture: AFP.
There will also be those who see him as someone who sold out white Afrikaners – a traitor of the volk (people).
“There were always going to be Afrikaners who would never forgive him for surrendering sovereign Afrikaner power, giving up the Afrikaners’ right to national self-determination,” said Steward.
And then there are those who will celebrate the passing of a man who held the reins of power during one of the bloodiest periods in the country’s history, who failed to take any personal responsibility for atrocities committed by the government’s security forces. A man who, up until shortly before his death, did not see apartheid as a crime against humanity.
University of Pretoria political scientist Sithembile Mbete believes history will not treat De Klerk well, in spite of the steps he took.
“I think that [it was] his inability to be completely forthcoming about the crimes of apartheid that were committed - both while he was president but also in the many years he was in Cabinet – and also his failure to acknowledge apartheid as a crime against humanity and to really acknowledge just how much damage apartheid did.”
AFRIKANER NATIONALISM
De Klerk was born in Johannesburg on 13 March 1936 into a politically active, well-connected family that flew the Afrikaner nationalist banner high. With a law degree from Potchefstroom University, De Klerk set up a practice in Vereeniging and then won a seat as a member of Parliament, after which he rose through the ranks of the National Party.
He took over as party leader after PW Botha was incapacitated by a stroke and became president of the country in 1989, meeting Mandela for the first time that December.
Together with Nelson Mandela, De Klerk was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
There was little chemistry between the two men and there were some serious flare-ups when De Klerk served in Mandela’s Cabinet as deputy president, alongside Thabo Mbeki.
FILE: Nelson Mandela, African National Congress (ANC) President (left) and South Africa's last apartheid President FW de Klerk (right), shake hands on 10 December 1993 in Oslo after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prizes. Picture: AFP
De Klerk would later lead the National Party out of the government of national unity, to become the official opposition. In 1997 he quit politics.
“De Klerk had achieved his basic objectives – so it was a very strange situation that the culmination of his career came with his loss of office,” said Steward.
Mbete said, “I think that if he’d had the courage and the morality and the ethics to really embrace this new South Africa that he was so instrumental in creating I think we would be far further than we are in our nation-building project.”
De Klerk is survived by his wife, Elita, whom he married after he and his first wife, Marike, divorced. Marike was later murdered in her home. De Klerk had three children: Willem, Jan and Susan. Willem died last year from cancer.
South Africa: Farm attack, family tied up by 6 attackers, swift response sees 3 arrested, Newcastle
Oorgrens veiligheid
Farm attack, family tied up by 6 attackers, swift response sees 3 arrested, Newcastle
A farm attack took place on 10 November 2021, at 17:10 on a farm along the D96 road in Newcastle, in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Six attackers, of which at least three were armed with pistols, invaded the farm and attacked a family who were assaulted and tied up.
The attackers ransacked the home and fled in the owners vehicle, a white cruiser with registration NN40409 and various household items.
The vehicle was later found abandoned.
All role players responded and with a well organised operation managed to track down three of the attackers and recover two firearms and some of the robbed items.
The other attackers are still on the run.
The family were not seriously injured during the attack.
The Newcastle police are investigating the attack.
There is no other information available at this stage.
The Taliban easily conquered Afghanistan because corrupt officials INVENTED 'ghost soldiers' so they could pocket their wages - and most of their 300,000-strong army did not EXIST
Ex-finance minister Khalid Payenda said officials added phantom personnel
Some of these included 'desertions' and 'martyrs' who were not in the army
They were added to official lists so generals could take their wages, he claimed
He claimed some officials accepted their wages and payment from the Taliban
Afghanistan's ex-finance minister has claimed the Taliban easily conquered the country because corrupt officials invented 'ghost soldiers' and took payment from the Islamist group.
Khalid Payenda said most of the 300,000-strong army and police officers did not exist and that generals added the phantom personnel to official lists so they could take their wages.
The Afghan government collapsed in August as Taliban fighters rapidly took control of the country, while US and coalition forces were withdrawing after 20 years.
Mr Payenda said the inflated numbers included 'desertions' and 'martyrs' because commanders often kept their bank cards and withdrew money.
+3
Khalid Payenda said most of the 300,000-strong army and police officers did not exist and that generals added the phantom personnel to official lists so they could take their wages
He claimed the troop numbers may have been inflated by as much as six times and said it was incorrect to suggest security forces outnumbered the Taliban.
He told the BBC: 'The way the accountability was done, you would ask the chief in that province how many people you have and based on that you could calculate salaries and ration expenses and they would always be inflated.'
Mr Payenda left Afghanistan and resigned as finance minister as the Taliban made large gains in the country.
The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has previously said that neither the US or the Afghans knew the true number of troops and police.
The Afghan government collapsed in August as Taliban fighters (pictured) rapidly took control of the country, while US and coalition forces were withdrawing after 20 years
Mr Payenda also claimed some government leaders were accepting their wages, while also taking payments from the Taliban, the BBC reported.
He added: 'The whole feeling was, we cannot change this.
'This is how the parliament works, this is how the governors work.
'Everybody would say the stream is murky from the very top, meaning the very top is involved in this.'
+3
A Taliban stands guard outside the military hospital, a day after bomb blasts and attack by IS militants, in Kabul, Afghanistan, November 3, 2021. Mr Payenda's comments come as dozens of family members of American soldiers remain trapped in Afghanistan and at the mercy of the Taliban
Mr Payenda agreed to a 'certain extent' that there was corruption in the finance ministry, but 'absolutely not' when it came to these issues.
It comes as dozens of family members of American soldiers remain trapped in Afghanistan and at the mercy of the Taliban more than two months after the Biden administration's botched withdrawal from the country.
Those stranded include children, siblings and parents of US service members, as well as more than 100 extended family members.
I’m a Scottish comedian in Glasgow for COP26, and even I couldn’t take the piss
as much as these climate change jokers. Every aspect of it is burning tonnes
of fossil fuels, and Scotland has a dismal environmental record anyway.
The climate change conference COP26 is well under way, and 30,000 delegates have flown into Glasgow to try to convince everyone to burn less fossil fuels – unless you’re doing something really important, like attending a taxpayer-funded party in Glasgow to convince people to burn less fossil fuels.
Why a conference concerned about climate change is being held in Scotland isn’t clear. Scotland has a terrible climate that needs to change. Climate change won’t be a disaster for Scotland – if temperatures rise by two degrees we’ll just undo the top button on our duffle coats. We’ll stop growing turnips and open vineyards.
ALSO ON RT.COMCarbon foodprints? The ruling class' plan to change what you eat
If sea levels rise, it’s no problem – we’ll just walk a bit further up the hill. Scotland is made out of mountains; we saw this coming. In fact a warmer climate might offset some of the failings of the ruling Scottish National Party (the SNP) – homeless heroin addicts will be less likely to freeze to death.
Accompanying the conference are an army of climate change activists. Glasgow hasn’t historically seen much climate activism. I don’t think their tactics would work here. I’ve seen Extinction Rebellion protesters in London gluing their hands to buses so the buses couldn’t drive away. That wouldn’t work in Glasgow – if you glued your hands to a bus there, within about 20 seconds someone would come up behind you, nick your mobile phone, and pump you in the arse. That bus wouldn’t move for three weeks – everyone in Glasgow would have a go. Your arse would have its own Tripadvisor page. And when they got bored pumping it, they’d use it for parking their bikes and keeping their tea towels tidy.
The hypocrisy of COP26
The wheels are already coming off COP26, but unfortunately not in a way that will cut carbon emissions.
A fleet of Jaguar electric vehicles have been hired to ferry delegates around, but there aren’t enough charging points – so a fleet of generators have also been hired to follow the cars around and charge them. You couldn’t make it up.
Every aspect of the conference is burning tons of fossil fuels. No less than 400 private jets flew delegates in, pumping out 13,000 tonnes of CO2, which is more than 1,600 Scots would burn in a year. Some have tried to excuse the flights saying they’re using “environmentally friendly jet fuel.” If there’s ever a phrase that sums up the dissonance and straight-faced hypocrisy of the climate change elites, it’s ‘environmentally friendly jet fuel’. Yeah, I’ll just put that next to my ethical cocaine and healthy uranium.
Even the food being served to delegates is environmentally unfriendly with some meals having a carbon footprint of 3.4kg – nearly seven times the target of 0.5kg set at the Paris climate accords. And as there isn’t enough ‘global elite’ standard accommodation in Glasgow some delegates have been placed in environmentally unfriendly cruise ships or hotels a high CO2-burning 80-mile taxi ride away.
In addition, council staff – bin men, school janitors, cleaners and cooks – are on strike, doing even less work than usual for public sector workers. So rubbish is piling up on the streets of Glasgow. Lawyers are also striking – so who will represent all the protesters who get arrested after gluing their faces to the road?
Fortunately, the conference doesn’t include a piss-up in a brewery to be screwed up too.
The hypocrisy of the SNP
Scotland’s ruling party, the SNP, has been keen to use the conference to get a message of independence across with an advert crowing, “A nation in waiting welcomes the nations of the world.” But the SNP has failed hard on every aspect of its own environmental policy.
Scotland ships millions of tons of waste abroad for ‘recycling’ including 1.7 million tonnes of plastic and all of its steel. This waste is sent to countries that burn the plastic and dump rubbish, polluting their own land and water. And it’s Scotland’s green taxes and tariffs that are paying for this!
They missed the 2020 target for 10% of journeys to be made by bike (it sits at just 4%).
Scotland’s own environment is in a perilous state too. The SNP have missed 11 of 20 targets on preventing species extinction. Currently, one in nine Scottish species is at the risk of extinction.
In fact, one of the few wild species thriving in Scotland are the rats in Glasgow, which have seen an explosion in numbers as the rubbish piles high on the streets – there’s an estimated 1.5 million rats in the city, more than there are people. I’m not sure what the carbon emissions of 1.5 million rats are, but it can’t be good. The rats are so bold that they’ve even been attacking council workers.
If we’re going to talk about the environment, why don’t the SNP start at home and clean up Glasgow? Hilariously, they have blamed the rubbish and rats in Glasgow on former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who has been out of power for 40 years and dead for a decade. I’m surprised they’re not blaming their environmental failures on the Roman Empire.
Failing Scottish people
As well as failing the environment, the SNP’s green policies are also failing Scottish people. They promised 130,000 jobs for Scottish workers by 2020 – only 21,000 had materialised by 2017 and that number was falling, not growing. They also promised 28,000 jobs in wind by 2020 – but only 1600 had been created by 2018.
Why? Because the SNP are giving the work to overseas companies. Turbines for wind farms are being built in France and Portugal. We’re paying for it and European workers are getting the jobs.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t care about Scottish workers – she just wants to hobnob with the global elite. She’s doing more for them than she is for Scots. Covid restrictions have been relatively relaxed for attendees because coronavirus apparently can’t spread when you’re trying to save the planet. I don’t know why we bothered developing vaccines, when everyone could have achieved immunity by joining Greenpeace.
ALSO ON RT.COMThe main goal of COP26 is ensuring there will be a COP27
While the SNP have used COP26 to push a message of independence, their own green policies have left Scotland completely dependent on England for power. We can produce lots of electricity when the wind’s blowing – but when it stops, our lights would go out without the UK’s national grid. An independent Scotland wouldn’t even be able to boil a kettle.
