Civilization stopped from descent into 3rd world conditions by bags of sand

On both Any Questions and Any Answers on BBC4 this weekend there was discussion about the Boy David's visit to Ruanda, leaving his constitutents flooded with dilute raw sewage to fend for themselves.

His visit to this poor benighted country was instructive to us all in the UK, as probably only 10% - 20% of the population probably have access such a thing as clean, potable running water and only probably 5% with mains electricity.

So not much different at home then.

The TV coverage was also instructive - half way through his turgid speech to the partly attended Ruandan Parliament , the lights went out.

Which was a fate missed by inches of foul floodwater at a major (unmanned) National Grid (EON ?) Power switching station at Walham in Gloucestershire (pic).

"Around 1.6 billion people around the world live with no electricity"

Kofi Annan. UN Sec. Gnl. May 11th 2006 New York . UN Commission on Sustainable Development

There was something delightfully primitive that the miracle of electricity was saved for some 600,000 consumers, including GCHQ and it's spooks and the (don't mention under threat of 'D' Notice Oldbury on Severn Power Station - an antique Magnox site opened in 1967 and due to shut in 2008) by schoolboys dressed as soldiers manually filling and carrying sandbags to keep God's Acts at bay and civilisation just hangin in there..

It was a scene that might have been transported from the period when the pyramids were built - and it highlighted the execrable (or almost absence of) of national planning for energy security... 600.000 plus businesses, etc and a few sandbags between a third world existence and a pluralist libertarian participatory Jeffersonian Democracy.

It remains to be seen how 350,000 people / industry react to absence of potable running water, for toilets, showers, baths for a couple of weeks ... combined with total electrical power loss the consequences are difficult to imagine in terms of social order and well being.

Toiling in the Dark: Africa’s Power Crisis NYT today

See Lord Patel Monday Jan 8th 2007

"Rolling blackouts blanketed parts of South Africa in January, and sporadic power failures have persisted since as the SA State Monopoly Eskom struggles to meet surging demand."

An essential primer for the UK is available at The Oil Drum UK " UK Energy Security" by Euan Mearns.

"Out of the Energy Labyrinth" by David Howell (nee Lord Howell of Guildford 1980's Tory Min of Energy) and Carole Nakhle is also recommended . Published June 2007 ISBN 978 1 84511 538 8 Pub I B Tauris.204 pp Approx £10 Paperback Amazon and also under TESCO non Food Online as "Entertainment" !!.

Pic extracted from superb shot by samfurlong, go here for complete and stunning shot. Note how the engineers made sure the road was elevated.

Maliki's Iraqi Government doesn't want reconstruction projects

William L. Nash, a retired general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Middle East reconstruction said..... “The management of the reconstruction program for Iraq has been a near-total disaster from the beginning.”

Read more (NYT today) about how only 435 out of 2,797 US taxpayer funded Iraqi reconstruction projects said to have been completed at a cost of US$5.8 billion, Iraq’s national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 of those projects valued at $501 million.

" ......recent cases, a $90 million project to overhaul two giant turbines at the Dora power plant in Baghdad failed after completion because employees at the plant did not know how to operate the turbines properly and the wrong fuel was used."

You couldn't fucking make it up.

Read more grim news about the Dora plant at Washington Post. Pic of plant in happier times under Saddam

AIPAC and Tel Aviv will be dancing with joy at this news

More >>>>

Bearded wonder Branson's space tourism plans explode prematurely ?

Mojave Airport houses one of the world's largest aviation scrap yards and has been used as a location in numerous TV shows and films, including "Die Hard 2" and "Waterworld."

There's a lot more scrap today after testing of a rocket motor by Scaled Composites LL C (SC) exploded when on test. Bearded near genius publicist Richard Branson and Jimi Hendrix obsessed Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen have formed a Space tour company with commercial spaceflight pioneer Burt Rutan who owned SC. SC would build a fleet of commercial vehicles dubbed SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.

Bearded Branson has sunk US$200 Mn of other people's money into a proposed fleet of Rutan's spaceships to send paying tourists some 62 miles above Earth for $200,000 to experience the view from space and five minutes of weightlessness. Be - jersied Branson told a trade show the new ship would be ready within a year and, after a year of flight tests, would have its first commercial launch in 2009.

Northrop Grumman Corp. owns 40 % of SC and recently agreed to acquire the rest of it. The deal is awaiting regulatory approval and should close next month.

2 people were reportedly killed instantly in the explosion in the explosion at 2:34 p.m. PDT (10:34 p.m. BST time) and 4 others were rushed to a local hospital. One of those died following surgery, according to the Los Angeles Times. The dead were named as Eric Dean Blackwell, 38, Charles May, 45 (who had just re-joined the company on Monday) , and Todd Ivens, 33, all employees of Scaled Composites, by deputy coroner, John Van Rensselaer.

Fire crews waited several hours before approaching the scene because of the extreme danger.
"We just don't know" why the explosion occurred, Rutan said at a news conference. He noted that nitrous oxide (which was being used) usually is "not considered a hazardous material."

The accident occurred during a test of the flow of nitrous oxide through an injector during testing components for a new rocket motor for the SpaceShipTwo. The chemical fuel was at room temperature and under pressure, Rutan said.

Comair Flt 5191 / Lexington Crash - sub poena's defied, gag orders, TSA censors reports ..WTF!?!?

It has now become apparent that the NTSB took the rare step of subpoenaing the lone survivor of Flight 5191 , co-pilot James Polehinke, but the interview never happened because Polehinke’s doctor insisted he was unfit to cooperate - he suffered major burns and in juries in the crash.

Today in the Miami Herald there is an unsigned news report that Attorneys for Polehinke said on Friday that neither he nor his crew was to blame for the crash that killed 49 people despite the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington on Thursday.

The attorneys for First Officer James Polehinke of Margate (Miami), the sole survivor of the crash, released a statement on Friday saying the board's findings are insufficient.

The board's findings fail to address, for example, faulty charts that misled the pilots to believing the original taxiway ended at the assigned runway, according to the statement from attorneys H. Bruce Brandon and Larry I. Moore III of Greensboro, N.C.

Curiouser and curiouser....

If you are interested in this story .. please make sure you read the comments. Also take a look at "Huffs Blog" which has 32 contemporary and useful comments, especially from Indie... and many very interesting news links.

Curiouser and curiouser....

Markets fall .. LCD sales zoom

Whilst US and EU investors worry *** over Stock Market falls they have been eclipsed by a drop in the engine room of modern technology.

The Taiwan Taiex index lost 404.14, or 4.2 percent, to close at 9,162.28 in Taipei. That's the steepest slide since June 2006, and the biggest fluctuation among global benchmarks. About five stocks fell for every one that gained.

Hon Hai fell NT$17, or 6.1 percent, to NT$263.50. China Steel Corp., Taiwan's largest steelmaker, declined NT$2.10, or 4.7 percent, to NT$42.50. Chunghwa Telecom Co., Taiwan's largest phone operator, fell NT$2.60, or 4.4 percent, to NT$56.

But .... AU Optronics Corp. the world's 3rd largest LCD maker - especially for lap-tops, clicked up 80 cents, or 1.5 percent, to NT$54.80. They announced 2Q2007 sales surge to NT$5.99 billion (US$182 million) from NT$182 million a year earlier. The company expects this year to report a profit of NT$2.47 billion.(US$750Mn)

The Vice Chairman Max Cheng told us that there was a stunning growth in deliveries ...2Q2007 large panel shipments, increased by 22.2% to 19.48 million from 1Q2007.
Small- and medium-sized panel amounted to 32.23 million with a 45.6% QoQ increase, both setting records for deliveries.

***
Washington Post today - "Wall St. Extends Losses as Dow, S& P Suffer Through Worst Week in 5 Years"

The Dow fell 208.10 on Friday , to 13,265.47, with nearly 140 points of that loss coming in the final half-hour of trading. For the week, the index fell more than 585 points, or 4.23 %.

As ever the Commerce Department (Reuters)reported contrived figures to show that the US GDP had increased at a 3.4 % annual rate, indicating that the drag from the housing sector declined (!!!).

See Saturday NYT for same story.

Elsewhere Preacher Dubya said ;

“And so I want the American people to take a good look at this economy of
ours. The world is strong — the world economy is strong. I happen to believe one
of the main reasons why, is because we remain strong.”

Doesn't that make you feel good ... Quagmire Accomplished.War is Peace ...FREEDOM IS SLAVERY ..... IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Tanks at Heathrow

Terrorism Act 2000 Chapter 11 Section V

44. - (1) An authorisation under this subsection authorises any constable in uniform to stop a vehicle in an area or at a place specified in the authorisation and to search-
(a) the vehicle; / (b) the driver of the vehicle; / (c) a passenger in the vehicle; / (d) anything in or on the vehicle or carried by the driver or a passenger.

(2) An authorisation under this subsection authorises any constable in uniform to stop a pedestrian in an area or at a place specified in the authorisation and to search-
(a) the pedestrian; / (b) anything carried by him.

(3) An authorisation under subsection (1) or (2) may be given only if the person giving it considers it expedient for the prevention of acts of terrorism.

(4) An authorisation may be given-
(a) where the specified area or place is the whole or part of a police area outside Northern Ireland other than one mentioned in paragraph (b) or (c), by a police officer for the area who is of at least the rank of assistant chief constable;
(b) where the specified area or place is the whole or part of the metropolitan police district, by a police officer for the district who is of at least the rank of commander of the metropolitan police;
(c) where the specified area or place is the whole or part of the City of London, by a police officer for the City who is of at least the rank of commander in the City of London police force;
(d) where the specified area or place is the whole or part of Northern Ireland, by a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who is of at least the rank of assistant chief constable.
(5) If an authorisation is given orally, the person giving it shall confirm it in writing as soon as is reasonably practicable.

This is the legislation which was used hold the famous 81 year old terrist, Walter Wolfgang, the veteran peace activist who heckled hapless Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary and Condi Rice's lickspittle lackey, at the 2005 Labour conference. At the same event another 81 year old, John Catt, was spotted wearing a T-shirt accusing Tony Blair and George Bush of war crimes and he was detained as he walked towards the seafront for an anti war demonstration near the conference hall in Brighton.

This is the legislation which is being used to justify preventing demonstrators from reaching the Heathrow airport for the Camp for Climate Action from August 14 to 21 "Eight days of low-impact living, debates, learning skills, and high-impact direct action tackling the root causes of climate change."

- which is also a "sensitive site " under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005. Demonstrators who breach the perimeter fence of "sensitive sites" can be jailed for 51 weeks or fined £5,000 for criminal trespass under the Act.

Section 132 of the same Act requires police permission to stage demonstrations within 1km of Parliament which was inserted (unsuccessfully) to shut up Brian Haw with his continuing Parlimanet Square protests.

Now British Airports Authority (BAA) which despite it's name is actually now part of a monster private (del Pino family ,one of the world's richest) anti - union Spanish company Ferrovial, whose owners have historical links with Franco , (More info Lord Patel June 6th 2006 "BAA falls to Ferrovial" ) have applied for an injunction in the High Court under under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 . Legislation originally introduced as anti stalking legislation see the CPS guidelines for it's use here.

Lord Patel's lawyers assume that this would involve visitors offending ( a new criminal offence under the Act) under Section (3)6 - breach of a civil injunction under section 3 - maximum penalty 5 years - but would more likely result in the issuing of a restraining Order under Section 5 by Crown Court or a magistrates' court on conviction.

Oxford University tried and failed to use this to stop animal rights protestors because the Judge claimed the proposed non-congregation zone was “inordinately large” and “impossible to identify”.

In this case the BAA draft injunction available so far seeks to ban members and supporters from setting foot near Heathrow and transport links to the airport including the Heathrow Express rail link from Paddington, the Piccadilly London Underground line and nearby sections of the M4 and M25 motorways.

The injunction names 4 individuals and 4 target groups affected by the proposed injunction include 4 four protest groups: Plane Stupid; Hacan, the Heathrow association for the control of aircraft noise; NOTRAG, No Third Runway Action Group and AirportWatch which is an umbrella organisation covering Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Woodland Trust.

Not satisfied with a slew of specific legislation to restrict freedom of expression and personal and individual liberty legislation is being twisted and contorted to stop / control / limit and abuse the exercise of those rights.

AH! say the conformists 225,000 happy holidaymakers (and ..er...voters) will pass through Heathrow every day in the summer we cannot restrict them ... pouring shit into the atmosphere.

So far if you want to know more go to the Camp for Climate Action website or be at Staines railway station in West London by 10am on Tuesday 14th August... but dobn't expect that to remain unchanged !!!

This part of the Climate Change for Action Manifesto List of Points for Action

Why target Heathrow?

Nowhere in the UK is there a larger source of CO2 emissions. Most countries emit less greenhouse gases than Heathrow's planes.

Heathrow is the world's busiest international airport. It is an iconic global symbol of aviation.

Heathrow is the heart of the UK's aviation industry.

Heathrow is the central plank of the government's airport expansion plans.

Heathrow has a planned third runway that can be stopped.

The third runway would bulldoze entire villages and destroy communities.

There is a big, established, long-term local campaign against Heathrow and BAA that we can join forces with.

There is an opportunity to highlight bias in the corrupt planning process in favour of big business and development.

The presence of Harmondsworth detention centre nearby highlights the plight of environmental refugees and the fact that climate change is fundamentally an issue of social and global injustice.

Comair Flt 5191 Lexington Crash - Gag Order on surviving pilot

The Miami Herald has a report on the NTSB meeting in Washington about Comair Flight 5191 crash on take off."Pilots, controller faulted in Kentucky plane crash" by Trenton Daniel (tdaniel@MiamiHerald.com) today.

The story ends with an in intriguing piece of information about the surviving co-pilot James Polehinke...


GAG ORDERPolehinke's mother, Honey Jackson of Sunny Isles Beach, (5 miles N of Miami - details) declined to comment Thursday, though she was watching the NTSB online proceedings live.

She referred questions to her son's attorney, Bruce Brandon, of Greensboro, N.C.

''I'm on a gag order,'' Jackson said by phone. ``There's nothing I can say.''

A message left for Brandon from The Miami Herald wasn't returned Thursday evening.

Curiouser and curiouser ......

EU-US Personal Flight Data Treaty signed - Uncle Sam needs to know what your meal preferences are

If you fly to the USA from a UK airport her Majesty the Queen has passed an Order in Council that means that your Personal Flight Data will be transmitted to the US authorities. For details see Lord Patel's post on Wednesday January 31st 2007
http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2007/01/fly-to-us-and-pass-their-terrism-test.html

Briefly. The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council At the Court at Buckingham Palace, the 19th day of July 2005 with the advice of Her Privy Council had ordered.
2006 No. 2316 / CIVIL AVIATION

The Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2006 Made - - - - 5th September 2006 /Laid before Parliament 7th September 2006 / Coming into force - - 30th September 2006
At the Court at Balmoral, the 5th day of September 2006
Present, The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty in Council
Her Majesty, in exercise of the powers conferred upon Her by sections 60(1), (2)(b), (3)(h) and (4), 61(1)(a) and 102(2)(b) of, and paragraph 2 of Part 3 of Schedule 13 to, the Civil Aviation Act 1982(a), is pleased, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, to order as follows: ... etc which means that 34 bits of data about you , name, address, sex, food preferences, credit card number, etc.,etc., will disappear of to the data vaults of uncle Sam forever.

At the time the EU were negotiating a treaty with the US , but HMQ couldn't wait so she pulled the old Order in Council trick on behalf of anyone who flies to the US from a UK airport, one of her cherished citizens or not.

Anyone noticed any MP's MEP's, Scots / Welsh MP's say anything whilst all this was whizzed through whilst they were on holiday last year ?

Gawd Bless you, yer Majesty !!!

Slightly more concerned about revealing all this data the EU have finally now negotiated a treaty for dealing with all this data that was signed yesterday in Washington by US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Amado on the behlf of every EU citizen and any other passenger choosing to fly from an EU airport to the USA. Chertoff says his guts tell him that such data is "an essential screening tool for detecting potentially dangerous trans-Atlantic travelers."

Concern over privacy rights led the EU to insist on a reduction in the number of data points (from 34 to 19) and to complain that the data would be stored for too long.

The US won't keep the data forever they will keep the data active for seven years, and then in a "dormant" file for specific uses for an additional eight years - how you check that it get's erased / destroyed is left to the imgaination. And US officials will not be able to access airlines' records directly, instead relying on the airlines to send them data -- or face fines.

Those 34 points have been reduced to 30, the remaining 11 points have such as race or religion is supposed to be filtered out, for instance, but could be retained in special cases. "This is like Swiss cheese -- for every rule, there is an exception or escape clause," says Dutch MEP Sophie in 't Veld "This fails completely, despite all the statements to the contrary."

"The Americans basically declare on their word of honor that they will be very careful with our personal data," Sophie in 't Veld says. "Based on our experiences in the past, that's not good enough." (Der Spiegel)

Again this year everyone is off on holiday so don't expect any MP's MEP's, Scots / Welsh MP's say anything whilst all this was whizzed through whilst they were on holiday again.

Just another erosion in personal feedom and liberty restricting UK (and EU fliers) citizens that have resulted from 9/11 , 7/7 et sequaela.... and which will contunue under Uncle Joe Stalin Gordon Brown.

Lexington Comair crash - TSA censors NTSB Report / Docs.

When Lord Patel posted , "Kentucky aircrash - a Queens connection and a coincidence" on Monday 28th August about the crash of Comair (part of Delta) Flt 5191, bound from Lexington to Atlanta that crashed in a balzing inferno shortly after takeoff at 6.06.36 on the previous day last year . Only a day after the accident the cause was fully understood.

Flight 5191 had simply taken off from Runway 26 (1,051 m) not Runway 22 ( 2,100 m) which it would need to get airborne as it would need at least 1,350 metres to the point of rotation (or lift off).

The Bombardier - CRJ - 100 didn't make it and neither did 49 crew and passengers. Only the badly injured co-pilot James Polehinke survived, as did the flight recorders.

This was the most serious air crash the in terms of deaths since November 2001, when American Airlines Flt 587 Airbus A300-600 No N14053 mysteriously crashed in Queens NY, shortly after takeoff from JFK airport, killing 265 people.

Lord Patel pointed out that pilot Polehinke had been with Comair since 2002 and was based out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens... a coincidence of no significance whatever .. but a memory jog.

NTSB Board meet to consider report on Lexington crash

So when Reuters ( and USA Today, CNN etc.,) reported on Wednesday 25th July 2007 , that after a day long hearing in Washington (without witnesses) that The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had concluded that the experienced flight crew of Capt. Jeffrey Clay and First Officer James Polehinke who had previously flown from the Blue Grass Airport , Lexington ...

1. Missed visual cues;
a) Runway markings
b) Construction barricades
c) Standard taxi route signs

2. Failed to conduct proper preflight procedures for Flight 5191 to Atlanta

3. Confirm its position on the runway to the control tower

4. Engaged in idle chatter on unrelated matters ( from 6:02:16 a.m. on taxi way until they move to sit on the hold line at 6.04.33) in violation of FAA ( a "sterile cockpit") and company regulations that may have distracted them..

..and at 6.06.00 set the throttles for take off on the fatal short Runway 26 instead of Runway 22 they noticed (Polehinkes on the voice recorder at 6.06.16 says "its weird" ) that the tarmac (which was under construction) was not lit, but it was too late to abort and they attempted rotation, hit an earth berm, trees and crashed in flames 1820 feet from runway from the airport.

The lone veteran Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controller (a second controller was required but not staffed by the FAA) on duty having cleared the only flight , who was not required to , "follow the aircraft movement from that point", directed his attention to some paperwork. The five member board forced to vote, decided that "the controller's actions did not contribute directly to the crash."

Staff dismissed as a non-factor the violation of an FAA directive calling for two controllers to work overnight shifts in airports like Lexington - one to keep an eye on the ground, the other to monitor radar.

The weather was clear, the crew fully rested . The plane was mechanically sound. Two previous flights had departed uneventfully on the correct runway.

Simply the pilots got it wrong, a problem the NTSB investigating staff struggled to explain how two competent pilots and the tower controller who cleared the jet for takeoff could make such blindingly obvious mistakes.

Staff members had also concluded the flight crew's lack of updated maps and notices alerting them to construction that had changed the taxiway route a week earlier was not a factor in the navigation error. Board Member Debbie Hersman pointed to the paperwork the crew never got detailing the taxiway change. Not only was it not in their packet from Comair, but the air traffic controller didn't broadcast the announcement that morning, even though it had been doing so the rest of the week.

Debbie Hersman said, this accident led them, " ...into the briar patch of human behavior." Hmmmmm.

Some 25 bereaved family members watched a live TV link at the downtown Hyatt in Lexington - Lois Turner whose husband died said "...the hard part, (is) to know that there were so many missed opportunities."

In what the NTSB considered basically was a slam dunk case of pilot error (despite understrength and diverted air control staff, absence of construction / taxi route changes for pilots / failure to broadcast taxi changes ) it had taken a long time to report.

TSA black out "sensitive data" in NTSB report / docs.

Therefore it was interesting to read in the Washington Post a report by Jeffrey McMurray (AP) , " Ky.Plane Crash screened for Secrets" on Tuesday 24th July, the day before the NTSB met a reason for some of the delay in reporting.

Jeffrey reported that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) (created in November 2001 as a response to 9/11) which has no statutory role in the investigation of the crash, had reviewed the investigation report for, "secret information about aviation procedures."

Apparently TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says the agency doesn't want "sensitive security information" involving airline operations to become public ,"because airline manuals often have overlap between safety and security procedures". So the agency inspected about 39,000 pages of documents sought in lawsuit by families of the crash victims between March and May and which must have led to delays.

Michael Gobb, executive director of Blue Grass Airport, which Comair has listed in a countersuit, said the TSA review came at the request of Comair, which is based in Erlanger, Ky. (Cincinatti Post) (WDTN.OH) (video to view here MUST SEE)

Two families have raised lawsuits against Comair and are represented by Attorney Stan Chesley who says his firm is still waiting for records and depositions to be distributed, he understands that when those documents are returned to be filed in the public record, the sensitive data will be blacked out.

Former director of the NTSB Jim Hall said he is surprised (he isn't the only person) that an agency that usually deals with terrorism threats would get involved in reviewing the legal documents of a plane crash attributed to human error.

"It totally shocks me," Hall said. "I have no understanding what their role would be unless it was a criminal matter, and that would seem to be handled by the FBI. If I were a family member, I would definitely want to know what the TSA was doing."

The NTSB proceedings are separate from the lawsuits, which will of course be heard in state / federal courts.

It is therefore even more interesting that the following day - the day the NTSB met in Washington , that the same AP reporter Jeffrey Mc Murray had a very long story in the Louisville Courier - Journal about the the case that Stan Chesley ( a fire follower starting with the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire 30 years ago in which 165 people died ) has about post accident survivability. Whilst the NTSB concentrated on the pilot's mistakes, Chesley points out that ....the fuel carrying wings were largely intact - the fuselage where the passengers sat was gone -- engulfed by a massive fire, even though the plane had never got far off the ground. First responders told investigators the explosion was almost instantaneous, giving passengers little opportunity to escape.

The safety board's preliminary report suggested at least 16 passengers suffered smoke inhalation, indicating they were still alive at impact time and perished by choking and fire.

When the American Airlines Flt 587 Airbus A300-600 No N14053 mysteriously crashed in Queens NY, shortly after takeoff from JFK airport, killing 265 people the NTSB eventually found that the rudder fell off as a result of anual over correction by the pilot in response to wind turbulence from the preceding JAL 747 flight... ignoring eye witnesses who saw fireballs and explosions in the mid section of the plane etc.,

.. and within half an hour the NTSB chairperson lady declared it was not a terrist incident, although the Hudson tunnel was closed, etc., etc.,

It makes Lord Patel consider checking with Homeland terrist Chertoff about the way to evaluate your guts .. because when the TSA want to "inspect" the NTSB report into a slam dunk crash and to black out sensitive data .. from the public report / documents ... his guts get a feeling.

Odd that Lord Patel made the connection between Old Blue Grass Airport and Kennedy Airport a year ago ..... very odd.

The tempo of Mugabe's overthrow quickens - African Brown / Millibandwagon shows it's hand

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)was formed in Zimbabwe in 1997 and campaigns for constitutional reform. It is described by the UK Foreign Ofice as a "a non-governmental organisation" composed of individual Zimbabwean citizens and civic organisations (who pay no membership fees).

Their vision is of , "a peaceful, prosperous, democratic and united country founded on human dignity and social justice" and seek to re-write the Lancaster House Constitution.

Their name suggests their birth was resonant of the similiarly named body formed from the French National Assembly on 9th July 1789 in the fervour of revolution .. when it dissolved on 30th September 2 years later it was succeeded by the Legislative Assmbly.

In their campaign for "constitutional reform" and their call for " a new and democratic constitution" to be determined before next year's elections the the modern NCA held meetings and demonstrations across Zim yesterday, 25th July 2007. Literature was distributed explaining and objecting to President Mugabe's proposed Amendment No 18 to the constitution - which adds scores of seats in the lower and upper houses, among other changes - designed to essentially freeze ZANU - NF power.

NCA chairperson Dr. Lovemore Madhuku described amendment no.18 as ‘treacherous and contemptuous’ when he addressed protestors in Harare. He said:

“Zimbabwe needs a constitution that entrenches human rights and freedoms,ensures a free and open society and an electoral system that gives citizens power to elect leaders who are responsive to their needs.”

In Harare, Police and state security with automatic rifles, batons and dogs fell upon the protesters and unleashed tear gas as water canon stood by. Police beat up and arrested 243 members who were detained but later released and riot police raided the NCA officers. Some 80-100 have since require hospital treatment. Demontrators marched elsewhere in Zim, and in Masvingo 23 were arrested and charged for public disorder, as well as 15 in Mutare (where NCA officer Bernard Dube's home was raided by state security agents and he has disappeared, whereabouts unknown) , 10 in Bulawayo and 17 in Gweru there were also demonstrations in Kwekwe and Morondera.

It was all reminiscent of the way that Morgan Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders were hospitalized after being assaulted by police who broke up a prayer meeting declared illegal in March this year.

In Afghanistan, our newly peripatetic Foreign Secretary David Milliband fresh from his in initiation in "pre-emptive intervention", the reek of the battlefield and the stench of dead soldiers, released a statement condemning the the Police violence and arrests which he declared "unacceptable"

"The economic crisis needs national unity not political crackdown. The
international community wants the proper treatment and release of those NCA
members still in custody."

"The initiative led by Thabo Mbeki is the best hope for the people of Zimbabwe and the run up to the SADC Summit ( the 27th South African Development Community summit 10th - 27th August in Lusaka , Zambia) provides the right conditions for progress."

It is evident that the NCA is one of the jigsaw pieces that is being moved (and no doubt financed by) external influence.

When the Bastille was stormed on the 14th July the NCA became effectively the Government of Metropolitan France.

"The assembly had acquired the entire power; the corporations depended on it;the national guards obeyed it... The royal power, though existing of right, was in a measure suspended, since it was not obeyed, and the assembly had to supply its action by its own."

said Francois Mignet, the historian of the revolution subsequently.

It is interesting that the FCO have shown their hand in such a fashion - Mr Brown pushing his African Policy ? Perhaps it will need a few of the bourgeoisie to be guillotined in public before the Constitution gets re-written... and who knows, if Mbeki plays his part everyone can forget the BAE bribery scandal.

Watch this space... and watch out for the Chinese.

UPDATE - Midnight 26th July 2007 - Interestingly ITV News at 10.30 had a lengthy report from South Africa with clips of hospitalised Harare NCA supporters in hospital with bad injuries, broken bones etc., Compared this with the March police beatings of MDC.

No doubt we will now see an increased tempo of news reporting - which all fits in with Mr Brown's stealin g the Daily Mail reading Cameronians - No Supercasinos- recalibrate Cannabis - Exit Iraq Pronto - longer Police custody - introduce wire tap evidence etc., ..save the White farmers.

A US Diplomatic lesson - Soft Cop / Tough Cop

Prior to his invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein peremptorily summoned the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie to a meeting with , this was the first time she had met him, which was at noon when the US was asleep.

What exactly was said during that meeting has been the subject of much speculation and propaganda for many years.

Various versions of what happened have been produced but the most commonly believed is one that states

..."We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first iven to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

Although this text does not appear in the document that is in the Thatcher Foundation which is is said to be the official sate telegram covering the meeting which is accessible at the margaret Thatcher Foundation Archives.(Gulf War: US Embassy Baghdad to Washington Saddam's message of friendship to George Bush) [declassified 1998] (see pic above)

James Akins, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (he had been Attache, in Baghdad,(1963-65) at the time, was interviewed on PBS radio in 2000 and offered a slightly different (and odd) perspective.offered a somewhat different perspective in a 2000 interview on the US Public Broadcasting Service.

"I have talked to a lot of my colleagues and said, "What would you have said if you were with Saddam and the subject of Kuwait came up? You would say exactly what April said, wouldn't you?" I know I would have. He talked about the border dispute with Kuwait, and she took the straight American line, which is we do not take positions on border disputes between friendly countries. That's standard. That's what you always say. You would not have said, "Mr. President, if you really are considering invading Kuwait, by God, we'll bring down the wrath of God on your palaces, and on your country, and you'll all be destroyed." She wouldn't say that, nor would I. Neither would any diplomat."

Which is remarkably different from what Richard Holbrooke said on PBS when he went to see Slobodan Milosevic when he had refused to sign the Rambouillet alleged Treaty.

You're sent again to talk to Milosevic, after the Albanians finally agree, at least in part. What happened in that March meeting, just before the bombing begins?

" .....I went back alone, and I sat there alone with Milosevic. I said to him, "You understand that if I leave here without an agreement today, bombing will start almost immediately." And he said, "Yes, I understand that." I said, "You understand it'll be swift, severe and sustained." And I used those three words very carefully, after consultations with the Pentagon. And he said, "You're a great country, a powerful country. You can do anything you want. We can't stop you." There was an air of resignation to him, and we sat alone in this big, empty palace, surrounded by these inherited Rembrandts and other art left over from earlier regimes. I said, "Yes, you understand. You're absolutely clear what will happen when we leave?" And he said, very quietly, "Yes. You'll bomb us." . . . I told him that the White House and the state department are waiting for a report, and that I've got to go. I asked, "Is that it? And one more time, you understand what happens?" He said, "Yes." So we left, and that was it. I want to stress that there was no misunderstanding in his mind. He knew the bombing would start immediately after our departure, and it did, less than 30 hours later.

They must have gone to different schools of diplomacy.

New Stockwell Killing Accident - Met respond immediately.

A 16-year-old boy was chased by youths on bicycles and died from gunshot wounds at the scene of the crime in Stockwell, South London today (BBC). The Met's Operation Trident team, which investigates gun crime in London's black community, led by Cressida Dick is investigating.

Advised about the casually dressed gun toting killers she has ;

1. Immediately asked for the Health and Safety Executive to investigate.

2. Sent a team of officers in to "secure" all CCTV footage.

3. Made certain that Sir Iain Blair or any senior officers at Scotland Yard are not advised or informed about any aspects of the murder accident for at least 24 hours.

4. As the killers people who caused the accident will have done a bunk taken a previously planned holiday to make sure they all sing from the same songsheet and practise their handwriting and are nowhere near anybody from the IPCC to recover from the sudden trauma of the accident, therefore any enquiries will proceed at a very leisurely pace but will involve a great deal of overtime.

5. Intense investigations will be undertaken about the victimperson injured in the accident involving multiple gunshot wounds to see if they have previously been involved in rape, indecent assault, and that their computers are not stuffed with vile paedophile images or if they are illegal immigrants.

6. Any witnesses to the murder accident will be asked to provide proof of identity, a DNA Sample, fingerprints, iris scans, and sign a witness statement and an eternal vow of secrecy punishable by death.

Record Oil prices as Chinese Stock Market hits record high

On the back of a report by the International Energy Agency which forecast oil demand growth will grow more quickly in 2008 than this year, U.S. Energy Department's weekly supply report showed several things that has affected the global energy markets today ;

1. Imports of gasoline rose by 737,000 barrels a day to an average of 1.65 million barrels per day last week, the highest weekly average ever.

2. US Refinery utilization grew by 0.7 % to 91.7 % and gasoline inventories grew by 800,000 barrels in the week ended July 20.

3. There was 1.4 million barrel decline in oil inventories in and around the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point for crude traded on NYMEX

As a consequence ....

Texas Light, sweet crude for September delivery on NYMEX rose 98 cents to $76.86 a barrel in electronic trading by midday in Europe. The contract had risen $2.32 to $75.88 on Wednesday.

September Brent crude settled at US$77.57 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.(US$1 off Aug 2006 all time record of US$78.65). An increasing concern is damage to the North Sea Central Area Transmission System (CATS) gas pipeline,which shut on July 1 after its conrete casing was damaged by a ship's anchor near Teesside port. Divers are inspecting the damage and operators BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward also told a news conference that it would be a number of weeks before repairs would be complete.As gas cannot be extracted this also affects oil production.

The 404 Km seabed CATS pipeline brigs gas ashore at Teesside from the Armada, Seymour, North Everest, Banff, Eastern Trough Area Project, J-Block, Lomond and Erskine fields U.K. gas network operator National Grid PLC NGG. The pipe has previously been delivering gas at a rate of just over 40 Mn cubic metres a week.

NYMEX heating oil rose 1.52 cent to $2.0811 a gallon while gasoline futures gained 2.16 cents to $2.1095 a gallon. Natural gas prices added 4.5 cents to $5.970 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Meanwhile ....

In China the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 22.49 points, or 0.52 %, to close at a record 4,346.46 this index has risen more than 62 % so far this year and 14 % since July 1st after more than doubling in 2006.

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)announced this week that China's gross domestic product soared 11.9% in the Q2 2007, up 0.8% on Q1 growth of 11.1%. China is on track to overtake Germany as the third-largest economy worldwide.

Lady Dame Jane Pauline Neville Jones Fan Club wants just a "couple of battalions"

On the BBC 4 "Today" programme , one of the principal mouthpieces of the Lady Dame Jane Pauline Neville Jones Fan Club was busy this morning with their spokesperson Lady Pauline calling for "just a couple of battalions" , complete with a Command Centre to act as a domestic , residential , well ...er Army.

Can't carry on using troops on a contigent basis...blah ..blah.. dedicated to protecting the homeland....Policy Group ... cannot make spending commitments...etc.,

We look forward to see how soon (Government Minister) Ex Admiral West who perfected the art of "losing" Admiralty documents to support Navy spending , taking up the General Dannet officially leaked memo about "overstretch" etc., and calling for a committed Homeland force.

Meanwhile a couple of monster aircraft carriers are a bit further down the slipway with their contingent Joint Strike Force aircraft, Trident is agreed upon, ...just a few of the major spending commitments shackling the armed forces committed to endless slogging land battles and skirmishes where they have insufficient, weapons, Land Rovers, helicopters, medical staff, field hospitals as a result of years of ignoring or mis-spending (Chinook's, Typhoon).

It is of interest that LDJPN-JFC member Lord Inge was effusive in support of fellow member Lord Paddy "Pantsdown" in the House of Lords last week.

Lord Inge, the former chief of Staff warned of a “strategic failure” in Afghanistan and he was, according to The Observer, speaking with the direct authority of the general staff .“The situation in Afghanistan is much worse than many people recognise,” Inge told the sleepy peers. “We need to face up to that issue, the consequence of strategic failure in Afghanistan and what that would mean for NATO ... We need to recognise that the situation - in my view, and I have recently been in Afghanistan - is much, much more serious than people want to recognise.”

“The consequences of failure in Afghanistan are far greater than in Iraq,” Ashdown said. “If we fail in Afghanistan then Pakistan goes down. The security problems for Britain would be massively multiplied. I think you could not then stop a widening regional war that would start off in warlordism but it would become essentially a war in the end between Sunni and Shia right across the Middle East.”

Calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq he said, ''We committed the cardinal sin of these interventions, which is to have ridiculously overambitious aims; to recreate Washington in Baghdad, to recreate a fully-functioning western-style democracy in a Middle Eastern country."... better bomb a civilised Western country like Yugoslavia from 20,000 feet eh Paddy?

They were of course absoluteley on the button... and the shortage of equipment for the Army can be fairly and squarely placed at the door of Lord Inge when he was responsible for the Army.

Gerry McCann meets Alberto Gonzalez .. who told the Truth ?

Greta Van Susteran met Gerry McCann, father of missing Madeleine McCann on FOX News "On the Record today" Read the full transcript here.

US readers will be fascinated to hear how Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez fills his day when he's not being called a lying bastard to his face by Members of Congress.

MCCANN: I'm very pleased to say that the Attorney General took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to meet with us today. And we had a 40 minute meeting, and we talked about these very issues, about how we can advance legislation.

And, I think importantly, Madeleine's disappearance has already created some discussion at the G-8 summit recently. (!!! ?)So it's becoming more topical. At least the public will know consider the issues, and that's something that we need to capitalize. There is a window of opportunity here to affect change for the better.

And, of course, Kate and I are both hopeful that the publicity surrounding this and our tie-ins (?) with the National Center and International Center for Missing and Exploited Children keep Madeleine's profile high and increases the chances of us finding her.

VAN SUSTEREN: Did the Attorney General Gonzales, did you get the sense that he knew about your daughter's disappearance before the meeting was set up?

MCCANN: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: He knew about it.

This was on the day that at a grilling in Congress, Senior democrat SEN. Arlen "One Bullet" Specter , (Penn) said about his evidence ...

" The chairman has already said that the committee is going to review your testimony very carefully to see if — if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Senator J D Rockefeller accused Gonzalez of committing perjury and others urged the Attorney General to correct his testimony, vaguely warning of legal action.One senator asked him flatly why he insists on staying on the job. Gonzalez said that's a good question, but he had to decide whether it would be better to leave or stay and try to fix the problems.

See The Washington Post today Wednesday, July 25, 2007; Page A14

Credibility Collapse
Once again, Alberto Gonzales is unable to offer straight answers to simple questions.
"I don't trust you."
"What credibility is left for you?"

UPDATE Thursday 5.00pm 26th July 2007

Mr McCann was due to meet Britain's ambassador in Washington yesterday and will then return to Portugal. No audience with the First lady then.

Courtney Coventry and the Met's magical Mystery Tour

My very good friend Courtney jetted into London on 26th June 2007 at the tax payer's cost and the Met's behest and then very rapidly turned around and jetted back to Nice at the taxpayer's cost and the Met's behest. Read her account of this strange and hectic day, a tale of odd mobile telephone calls, press photographers who unerringly find the right hotel to hang around, hastily re-arranged airflights ...

Consider why her Plod minders were told by their "superior" that ..."due to (the) amount of press his "superior" did not want to proceed with my statement at this time and they were going to try to change my flights to get me out of the country as soon as possible."

Courtney particularly asked that everyone understands that ...

"I am the ONLY person who has actually come forward and said that Lord Levy did offer honours in exchange for cash and that Blair was aware of this."

Go here

Dope has killed Cycling - what next ?

In the shadow of the world's biggest brick built structure the 14 Century cathedral fortress at Albi , the Tour de France 13th stage time trial was won on Saturday by the man of the mountains, Kazakh superman Alexander "Vino" Vinokourov .

He covered the 54 Kilometres in , around and through Albi including 2 hills in 1 hour 6 minutes 34 seconds at a blistering pace of 48.661 Km/hour, a stunning 74seconds ahead of Cadel Evans and with his Astana Team colleagues Andreas Klöden and Andrej Kashechkin in 3rd and 4th place.

On his website
was ecstatic, but not entirely truthful,

"It’s a new Tour that begins for the Astana Cycling Team today! I recover all my
sensations. I would like to thank my teammates, my masseur as well as my
ostheopath and the whole staff who all helped me a lot to feel good again. I
wish also to thank the numerous public that always encouraged me. The Tour will
be over only in Paris. But for sure, the team will attack tomorrow ! "

On Sunday the Tour moved into the Pyrenees and Alexandre Vinokourov on the 197 kilometre stage from Mazamet to Plateau-de-Beille, trailed 23 minutes behind the field in 70th place. Yesterday on the 15th Stage Foix-Loudenvielle - Le Louron over 107 kilometers 1st, 51 seconds ahead of Kim Kirchen. He r4ecorded on his website ...

"I felt good, as well as my legs. At the first break, I thought here were too many riders and that I had to go on with my effort. As I saw I could make it, I tried to be alone and first at the top of the last climb,(Col de Peyresourde, 21.5km from the finish) in order to be sure to win the stage."

It was then that the results of his bloodtests after the Saturday win showed that, incredibly he had two people's red blood cells in his body - imputing he had received a blood transfusion before the Saturday stage. Vino told the French sports paper L'Equipe that it was a mistake, when he was injured last week there was blood everywhere etc.,

The Swiss based team managed by former Tour de Suisse organiser Marc Biver and sponsored by Kazakhstan state industries including Air Astana and also by Laksmi Mittals, Mittal Arcelor steelworks (in which Tony Blair had a hand in helping Mittal buy the Kazakh State steel mills by a letter borne by cash for coronets Lord Levy !) withdrew before the "B" samples were checked. and tested.

Britain's Olympic Gold Medal winner Bradley Wiggins beaten into 5th by 135 seconds in the Albi Time Trial admitted he had suspicions over Vinos performance in Saturday's time trial - he told the Guardian "I know that to put two minutes into me what power Vino would need and the effort he would have had to make and it didn't add up."

On Monday May 28th 2007, Lord Patel posted " Dopey Cyclists finally blow open drug ridden European Cycling Circus" deailing the way past winners had spilled the beans in various books and TV programmes.

Now Vinokourov's performance has exposed that the whole sordid cycling circus has learnt nothing ... Now Danish Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen riding for Rabobank team has admitted making a mistake in missing out-of-competition drugs tests.

Apparently The Danish Cycling Union said last week Rasmussen had been warned for missing two random controls earlier this year and banned him from September's world championships and the 2008 Olympic Games. After this the International Cycling Union (UCI) said he had missed two separate random tests in the past 18 months - all cyclists who race under their supervision sign that they will forfeit a year's salary if they are caught doping.
Rabobank manager Theo de Rooy said he was aware of the missed tests and revealed he fined Rasmussen 10,000 Euros (£6,720).

All this has come on top of the reveation that the T-Mobile team member Patrik Sinkewitz , had been tested in training and had shown elevated testosterone levels an easily detected performance enhancing drug.

Brian Holm 44, the T Mobile manager has admitted in his autobiography , published earlier this year that he doped himself - a skirmish with stomach cancer forced him to accept that it's better not to ignore unpleasant truths for too long.

The impact of this continuing doping in Germany was massive - and curiously almost unreported in the UK;

1. German TV networks ARD and ZDF had announced plans to cut their live coverage of this year's Tour de France and write off a €7 MN investment. "We want a clean sport," says Nikolaus Brender, chief editor for German public broadcaster ZDF. Private broadcaster Sat.1 has taken over covering the Tour since last Thursday.... and bought the rights for peanuts.

2. Christian Frommert, T-Mobile's sponsorship spokesman, talked of withdrawing its support for professional cycling.

3. Adidas, who spend about €500,000 ($690,826 - £350,000) a year on the T-Mobile team, announced plans get out.

4. In Stuttgart, where the world championships are due to be held in September the city council is debating what to do as German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble threatens to cancel the event altogether. Chairman of the sporting committee in the Bundestag, Social democrat Peter Danckert, has openly questioning continued Government support for the dope ridden sport.

"Cyling Is Dead" says Der Spiegel

" Professional cycling has dug its own grave. There is nothing left to disclose,
no unresolved mystery and no room left for illusions. Everyone has known about
it for years and everyone has chosen to look the other way."

Sports TV is part of the entertainment industry, it generates massive audiences, enormous license fees, and mouth watering advertising revenues. It's participants and their camp followers of agents, publicists, can and do earn huge sums and it's sponsors hopefully dwell in the reflected glory of a healthy sweat soaked sport for their brand.

Even the innocence of low speed golf, the essential dream for middle aged man is not free from this breach drug fuelled breach of innocence. Nine-times major champion, South African Gary Player before the UK Open suggested at least 10 players on the professional circuit used performance-enhancing substances.. "I know there are golfers doing it (taking drugs), whether it's HGH (human growth hormone), whether it's creatine or whether it's steroids, I know for a fact some golfers are doing it." .... but wouldn't name any.

Greed has driven sportsmen to cheat. If cheaters can survive and win the illusion is lost, it becomes a spectacle of economic crime, just as fake as fixed TV quizzes and the smile of a Prime Ministers who fixed the 2012 Olympics for London by bribery of the Olympic Committee members - whose votes can be fixed with whores, foreign travel and quite modest kick-backs.

Paradoxically Team T-Mobile has promised to clean up pro cycling, but it may have been too ambitious - or monumentally naive. Company executives were so alarmed by the historical revelations of doping - the T Mobile team was forced to suspend team doctors Andreas Schmid and Lothar Heinrich after it was discovered that they had provided cyclists with the performance-enhancing drug EPO in the 1990s. Then sporting director Rolf Aldag publicly admitted to having taken EPO himself in the past that they already considered pulling out last summer. T-Mobile's bosses hoping to transform their embarassment into a victory, decided not to pull out precipitately . Intending to prevent negative publicity, they cleaned up their act - and called it "Clean Cycling" .

In came American millionaire and cycling fan Bob Stapleton, as T-Mobile's chief of racing. Rolf Aldag, (who hadn't come clean by then) was the team's sporting director. A dope monitoring system managed by Professor Walter Schmidt of the University of Bayreuth , was contracted to conduct random testing of team members to uncover possible cases of blood doping. T-Mobile also contributed €500,000 ($690,826) annually to Germany's National Anti-Doping Agency's testing program. All to provide the team with an ersatz (and short lived) patina of honesty and transparency.

Replacing management,coaches, doctors, is the easy bit , building a team isn't - hence professionals like Patrik Sinkewitz were an inheritance from the old system. Sinkewitz, had mildly murky history a past member of the Mapei and Quick Step teams both suspected of doping he joined T Mobile in 2006.

Perhaps there was too much of a hangover from the Deutsche Telekom days (as the team was previously known) when Fuentes, the Spanish doctor, and East Germany's new found hero cyclist Jan Ullrich, were in the saddle.

Dope Addicts

The pressures on premier sportsmen (yes it is mainly men) , the demands to meet sponsors goals for a monster media profile , the daily training , produce both a physical and psychological dependency which with readily available help, becomes a chemical dependency.

Finally there must come a time when the sporting hero believes they cannot do it without doping. They become junkies. Junkies lie and junkies have no sense of right and wrong. First they deceive themselves and then everyone else. As addiction proceeds they begin to believe that they can do anything.. they lose the sense of having a body with limits.

It is a long time since sports were a noble pursuit.

The ARD and ZDF media networks, Adidas are evidently are determined to stop supporting this addiction. T-Mobile, bottled water producer Gerolsteiner and the dairy group Nordmilch, are looking very hard at continuing their sponsorship of pro cycling - how can you promote pure water, milk and healthy living with dopeheads ?

Osaka hosts the world championships in track and field in August, 2 out of the last 3 100 mens 100 metres winners have been found doping in the last two years.

At the Athletics World Championships in Paris in 2003 where there were 405 doping tests undertaken and these exposed ....

US 400m winner Jerome Young it was admitted after the race had tested positive for doping in 1999, but was let off by the United States Track and Field Association.

The UK's Dwain Chambers was eventually caught up in the BALCO doping scandal helped the UK team win the 4 X 100meter relay - who lost their Gold Medals when this was revealed.

In the 4 X 400m relay the US team were similarly disqualified when team member Calvin Harrison was found guilty of a doping violation with modafinil.

The Byelorussian shot putter Andrei Mikhenevich and Gold Medalist had only been reinstored 2 weeks before the Championships after a doping offence in 2001.

2 years later at the 2005 Helsinki Athletics World Championships the Finnish Anti Doping Agency had a very strong and rigid program , 884 doping tests were taken from 705 athletes. Only 2 athletes, an Indian discus thrower and a Ukrainian hammer thrower, were caught using illegal substances.

One female athlete whose sample raised a few eyebrows discovered to her considerable surprise that she was in fact pregnant - she only learnt of the fact after her dope test showed traces of the hormone HCG. HCG is produced by the placenta, and has been used - at least in male athletes - as a agent to hide other illegal substances.
After a gynaecological examination, the woman was congratulated and cleared of any suspicions of doping.

Lest you thinkthe Finns are especially meritorious, at the 2001 The Nordic Skiing World Championships in Lahti, Finland, were supposed to be the Championships of all time. Before the games were over, a total of six top Finnish cross-country skiers had been caught using a banned blood plasma expander called Hemohes.

In Beijing next year the Chinese will stack up the gold medals who have had little if any in training monitoring... no bets are being accepted on the London 2012 Games.

STOP PRESS Midnight 25th July 2007

Overall leader wearing the yellow Jersey today, 33 year old Dane Michael Rasmussen has been sacked by his team Rabobank. Rabobank director Theo de Rooy said: "Several times he said where he was training and it proved to be wrong. The management of the team received that information several times and today we received new information." The bank said, "Rabobank at this point does not plan to withdraw from cycling."

It is not clear that the Rabobank team will start the 17th Stage today.

Rasmussen was jeered by the crowd after winning the 16th stage (see pic as he croses line) , the final mountain stage. He had beaten Discovery Channel's Levi Leipheimer by 26 seconds on the 218.5km route from Orthez in the Pyrenees to retain the leader's yellow jersey. The start of the stage was delayed by 10 minutes after riders from the six French and two German teams protested against doping in the sport.

The Astana team did not start but more bad news included the news that Italian Cristian Moreni had failed a drugs test for testosterone his Cofidis team subsequently withdrew from the race.

The whirr of War - Bombing Iran.. this time it's for real

A relative who lives near Versailles told me at the time of the endless whirr of helicopters as the meetings were held at the nearby Chateau Rambouillet in February 1999. This was when the Western Powers colluded in a criminal agrement called an "Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government In Kosovo", ( in English - for later translation ) which they knew Milosevoc would not accept.

The terms of secret Appendix B Status of Multi-National Military Implementation Force in 25 sections gave NATO total carte blanche to do whatever they wished.

It was on the basis of this document that Milošević refused to accept that the Western powers provided themselves with the authority to drop high explosive bombs on a western civilised country from 20,000 feet.

Lord Gilbert the Minister of State for Defence later said to a House of Commons enquiry "I think the terms put to Milošević at Rambouillet were absolutely intolerable; how could he possibly accept them; it was quite deliberate".

Memories of this were rekindled by a report about Ray Lustig a retired Washington Post photographer who has lived in the Palisades section of Northwest Washington for 39 years.
he has noticed that every major US military action was preceded by increased helicopter traffic over his house, as choppers shuttled people back and forth between the Pentagon, and CIA Langley HQ.

Ray said Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom all started after weeks and weeks of helicopters big and small travelling the well-worn air route above his house.

"The movement in June was truly extraordinary," he said, a near-constant chatter from 6:30 in the morning till 2 in the morning. "I figure they're either planning the endgame of the Iraq war or they're going to bomb the nuclear facilities in Iran."

Two more things.

In February when the Democrats were pretending to hound the administration over the surge, grandmother Nancy Pelosi urged by her pals in AIPAC and with House Majority Leaders Stenny Hoyer and Reid let Dubya off the hook over removing demands that he was required to consult Congress before attacking Iran.

The Pentagon announced on July 10th that it the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier battle group, was off to Iranian waters - that means that there will soon be three carrier battle groups within striking range of Iranian targets.

First the Iranian Terrist atrocity then we bomb them.

The Cheney doctrine is alleged to be a false flag US based sub nuclear event - a container ship in the Panama Canal with a dirty bomb - perhaps with synchronised events on the Northern Iraq / Iran border and Israel "taking the chance to "bomb Syria.

As the dollar finally tanks (plus 1.40 to the Euro, plus 2.06 to the pound) , and the mortgage crisis hits, as the commodity markets soar, bombing Iran seems like a good idea.

That's when the UK forces high tail it for Kuwait or fly out of Basra and those long, long supply lines , all those trucks driven by third world hired hands crumbles and Baghdad is isolated.

They will need more than whirring helicopters to get out of that mess.

Prof. Southall who accused Stephen Clark of murder agrees to GMC continuing sanctions

Paediatrician Professor David Southall, 59, watched a Channel 4 Despatches documentary about the Sally Clark case in April 2000. The film highlighted weaknesses in the case against Sally Clark and her husband appeared in the film who was campaigning for his wife's release. In the film Stephen was interviewed and he described a nosebleed that his son Christopher had had in a London hotel in 1996. Christopher died at home nine days after the hotel incident.

Southall subsequently publicly accused Mr Clark the husband of solicitor Sally Clark of murdering their children as he had concluded that the father must have tried to smother Christopher just before the bleeding. He contacted the child protection team and later wrote a report claiming that Mr Clark's guilt was "certain or near-certain."

Southall had no previous involvement with the investigation into the deaths of the couple's children - other than presumably reading what was publicly available. Southall went to the Police and told them that it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that Steve Clark murdered his sons, Christopher and Harry. he also provided a written report explaining his reasons for reaching that conclusion. This is a claim for which has has not apologised for to Mr Clark and has refused to withdraw or entertain any caveats, when requested to do so by the GMC review panel. It is also a claim which the Police or the CPS have not seriously pursued... although of course Mr Clark was initially charged by the Police with the children's murders, but the the charges were dropped at an early stage in the investigation.

At the time Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and a member of the science and technology select committee, said: "Doctors have a duty to report to the appropriate authorities legitimate concerns they may have about the health and welfare of children.

"What has been lost in the coverage of this case is that the doctor concerned has been criticised for the nature and style of his reporting to the child protection authorities and not the fact that he did it."

Stephen Clark issued a press release at the time through Sue Stapely his publicist which is available here at the Sally Clark website.

The GMC have previously (Aug 2004) forbidden Southall from working on child protection cases for 3 years after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 2004 and was declared to have been "irresponsible, inappropriate and misleading". after Mr Clark complained to the GMC.

A further review meeting held today at the General Medical Council (GMC) headquarters in Manchester heard that Southall will not contest an application to extend that ban for a further 12 months.

Southall was present, but said nothing his lawyer, Alison Foster QC, said Southall will "freely accept" restrictions banning him from working on child protection cases.

"We would submit there's been no substantial change in Dr Southall's position," Mr Tyson QC Counsel for Mr Clark, told the hearing. "He still thinks he was right to do what he did and this, we submit, shows a continuing lack of the necessary insight or he's a man who doesn't change his mind easily." Previously Tyson had said Professor Southall was an arrogant, dogmatic and "very dangerous doctor" who did not deserve his place in the medical profession.

Dr Southall is currently facing further disciplinary proceedings following an allegation he kept more than 4,000 "special cases" files about children.

It is alleged these documents were not stored on a proper hospital file and some cases later involved criminal prosecutions.

The attorney general (who is of course now the unelected and snooty Baroness Scotland and not the discredited war criminal Lord Goldsmith) is reviewing all the cases in which Dr Southall appeared as a prosecution witness.

Southall pioneered the use of covert video surveillance (CVS) to detect cases of Munchausen's Disease by Proxy which led to a total of 33 parents or step-parents being prosecuted.

It is difficult, if not impossible to imagine a worse libel than to be accused of murder of your children ... Mr Clark, whilst pursuing Southall relentlessly for his claims has not yet taken the opportunity to sue him for libel or defamation.

Southall was appointed OBE for his work in refugee camps during the Bosnian conflict. He donates half of his £140-an-hour fees as an expert witness to his charity, Child Advocacy International, which runs children's medical projects all over the world. You can help a child by becoming a Friend for £12 per month.

Apple iPhone - Hacked and Hi-jacked by ex(?) NSA wire juggler

Charles Miller ex NSA employee, now a security analyst for Baltimore based Independent Security Evaluators claims he can take control of iPhones through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code.

Miller demonstrated the hack 'n' hijack to a reporter on the International Herald Tribune by using his iPhone's Web browser to visit a Web site of his own design.

Once he was there, the site injected a bit of code into the iPhone that then took over the phone. The phone promptly followed instructions to transmit a set of files to the attacking computer that included recent text messages - including one that had been sent to the reporter's cellphone moments before - as well as telephone contacts and e-mail addresses.

"We can get any file we want," he said. Potentially, he added, the attack could be used to program the phone to make calls, running up large bills or even turning it into a portable bugging device.

The whole thing is explained at http://www.securityevaluators.com/iphone/with a handy video and FAQ's and a downloaded PDF with more technical gumph. http://www.securityevaluators.com/iphone/exploitingiphone.pdf

The trick appears to take advantage of buffer overflow bug at 1024 bytes in Safari that has been previously reported to Apple (and exploited). If the hole is on the Safari side, it identifies the downside to a phone with a semi-real browser installed — it becomes vulnerable to attack like any other user of the browser on a laptop / desktop machine.

The same problem has been identified with the release of Safari for Windows last month with a great deal more detail available... Apple very swiftly fixed it... and no doubt will fix this claimed vulnerability. Meanwhile stay well clear of unauthorised Wi-fi nodes and don't be misled into looking at sites called http://www.nakedladies.com/

Update : Apple claims a patch fixes this problem Times

The Apple iPhone - Under the Hood

The Apple iPhone is a remarkable bit of kit., combined, media player, Web browser and mobile phone, it packs an awful lot in a small space....it is the result, like the recently rolled Boeing Dreamliner 787 of global sourcing.

The most evidently critical componenet is the touch screen, used both for display and data entry which is a product of joint German/ Chinese knowhow. Balda, based in the North West town of Bad Oeynhausen has been making bits of mobile phones including Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola but last year cut its German workforce of 2,400 by 70% and made a huge loss.

Simultaneously selling 6 German factories they opened new facilities in China and India and bought a 50% share of TPK Holdings, a Xiamen based company founded by Taiwanese engineer Michael Chiang, (2006 T/O US$180Mn.) who took up 15% of Balda.

In Xiamen TPK Holding has a manufacturing joint venture Optera Technology Xiamen, Ltd. with the US world market leader for high-tech coatings of touch screen glass Optera which is a subsidiary of the Magna Donnelly Group, one of the world’s biggest automotive suppliers.

Balda who say on their website that they refuse to respond to speculation about whether they are iPhone suppliers have, through the TPK technology been able to supply a tough glass-surfaced screen overlay that is more sensitive, thinner, lighter and harder to scratch or smudge than the plastic displays that are widely used in mobile phones.

It is said that the screen offers sharper resolution, and unlike conventional touch screens—which get confused by more than one finger at a time—Balda's displays can sense several human digits simultaneously. The touch screen overlays an LCD display which is probably multiple sourced from Sharp and Sanyo Epson.

It appears that the main microprocessor chip, although stamped with an Apple logo, has a serial number that chimes with a chip that Samsung sells. Samsung also supplied the NAND-type flash memory that stores data on the phone, including songs, video, and pictures.

The core design of Samsung's chip , is based on a core design that is owned by the British chip technology licensing firm ARM Holdings. ARM does not manufacture chips but licenses designs. There is at least one other ARM-based chip, from NXP Semiconductor (previously Philips Electronics) .

All battery driven products need to lengthen battery life and power managment systems are a major featire of iPhone (claimed talk time on the iPhone's battery is eight hours) and include chips from Philips, Texas Instruments and Linear Technology .

The iPhone is exclusively licensed (you sign for 2 years) for use of AT & T voice and data networks *** (who have such a close working relationship with the US Government secret agencies, see here for suggestion NSA have back door into iPhone ) and uses components from Infineon , Skyworks , RF Micro Devices , and Marvell Technology Group(wi-fi chips) . UK based Cambridge Silicon Radio , bred by Sir Ronnie Cohen's Apax Partners amongst whose shareholders you can include Lord Patel, supplied the Bluetooth chips that connect the iPhone to wireless headsets (US$1.20 income for each phone sold).

A neat feature is the way the screen is automatically orientated for the user which is sensed by an accelerometer—a chip that senses motion—from Swiss based STMicroelectronics (confirmed on their website) handling various aspects of the display are chips from National Semiconductor, Broadcom , and NXP. Idaho-based Micron Technology supplied the imaging chip (MT9T111) that is central to the camera enabling higher-quality pictures without motion image blur and with lower power consumption.

Who puts all this together is a mystery,the trademark Apple distinctive aluminum and stainless steel iPhone case is made by a Taiwanese firm, Catcher Technology and the printed circuit boards are supplied by Taiwan's Unimicron Technology Corp so maybe in Taiwan but certainly not Hon Hai who made the iPOd and who have come in for criticism in the UK press (Daily Mail June 26th) about sweatshop conditions in their Foxconn plant in Longhua, China.

Apple sprung into action when these criticisma were raised and went to investigate the complaints about conditions and pay ...as of June 28, .... "We are still investigating the working conditions at Foxconn's manufacturing plant in Longhua"" said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling. "This is a thorough audit, which includes employee working and living conditions, interviews of employees and managers, compliance with overtime and wage regulations, and other areas as necessary to insure adherence to Apple's supplier code of conduct. Apple's supplier code of conduct sets the bar higher than accepted industry standards and we take allegations of noncompliance very seriously."

So far comment is ecstatic about the phone but owners beware ! The iPhone’s battery is apparently soldered on inside the device and cannot be swapped out by the owner as in most cell phones.

Users will need to submit their iPhone to Apple for battery service. The service will cost users $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, and will take three business days.

The procedure is similar to the one it has for the hugely successful iPod players, but because some users will not want to live without their cell phones, Apple is also offering a loaner iPhone for $29 whilst their indispensible gadget is under repair.

*** It is AT & T Company Privacy Policy that the company, not customers, owns customers' private data. ""While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T," the policy states. "As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

The company also asserts that it has "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare, whether it be an individual or the security interests of the entire nation." This new policy, adopted in June 2006, dropped a reference stating that the company "does not access, read, upload or store data contained in or derived from private files without the member's authorization."