Spanish UN force commander in DR Congo Lt. Gen. Vicente Diaz de Villegas resigns after 7 weeks in job

Now Congo becomes another "unexpected" hotspot the commander of U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resigned on Tuesday after just seven weeks in the job.

Lt. Gen. Vicente Diaz de Villegas of the Spanish contingent "has indicated that for personal reasons he will not be able to continue with his assignment as planned," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas told a regular news briefing. Ghanain Brig.-Gen. Ishmeel Ben Quartey is acting as commander meanwhile. Pic shows Diaz being welcomed in post by UN Sec Gen Ban Ki-Moon.

His appointment as force commander for the U.N. mission in Congo (17,000 strong - the biggest UN military force in the field anywhere ) , known by its French acronym MONUC, was announced on September 9.

The 1998-2003 war was a humanitarian disaster in which it is guessed 5.4 million people died, mainly from hunger and disease.

Congolese Tutsi insurgents of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) loyal to renegade Gen. Laurent Nkunda advanced towards the strategic eastern city of Goma on Monday after launching a new offensive over the weekend. Local people angered by the fighting rioted at the U.N. base in the town, and one person was killed, a U.N. spokesman said.

It is claimed by some a civilian was killed by US forces.

Fighters overran an army base at Kibumba on Sunday north of Goma. Rebel rockets destroyed two MONUC armored vehicles during Sunday's clashes, wounding several UN peacekeepers.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is extremely concerned.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said on Wednesday that France was interested in sending troops, but the EU's Solana wouldn't hear of it. This was a resurrection of the French-led Artemis team sent in 2003 to Bunia in Ituri.

The head of the UN Mission in the Congo, Alan Doss, spoke Tuesday with the Press by video link from Kinshasa. He chided Congolese locals for protesting against MONUC inaction or retreat, urging them to understand the Mission's mandate.

Joe Bavier, a freelance journalist working in North Kivu, told Al Jazeera that the anti-government offensive was rapidly taking control of territory.

"For the last few days we have had fighting just north of the provincial capital, Goma. That calmed a bit, but now there has been a fresh offensive by the rebels, pushing north along the main road out of Goma towards Rutshuru," he said.

"Rutshuru is one of four urban areas that MONUC has vowed to defend at all costs. Today UN humanitarian workers are preparing to evacuate the town.

"We are still trying to verify whether the town has fallen into the hands of the rebels."

The scale of humanitarian losses is that some 250,000 civilians have fled their homes in North Kivu since a very flaky peace deal collapsed in August.

The UN says that about 850,000 people had been displaced in two years of sporadic fighting before a previous peace deal was signed in January.

The Environment Agency said an 'unforeseeable and freakish' combination of factors had led to the extreme conditions in Ottery St Mary.

If Obama is (still alive) elected

"What happens when you replace a sociopathic lunatic with an eloquent, sane man who espouses the exact same policies? I think it will become even more apparent to the world that America is helplessly in the grip of corrupt corporations and a hoplessly corrupt Congress and that it’s time for a serious worldwide boycott of all things American, including the dollar. The dollar is all that America understands."

Posted comment by Jonathan on October 29th, 2008

To article Note to Progressives for Obama: What Happens After Election Day?
by Joshua Frank at Dissident Voice.

The considered view of Lord Patel is that the Bush gang AKA McCain etc., is such a bunch of Gangstas that somehow the vote will, as in 2000 and 2004, be hi-jacked.

To believe that Obama will bring in a liberal and open minded administration is to believe in perpetual energy machines and Universal Love.... one thing is certain, the US will carry on fighting the Zionist's wars for them.

What have we to look forward to ? Well the Presidential Pardons as he leaves the Oval office will make fascinating reading. You can be certain that the clients of the interesting Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP whose plush Washington Offices at 1615 L Street, could figure as their partner Theodore V. Wells Jr (see pic) notably worked for Scooter Libby who was handed a get out of jail card by the President. he has along list of successful defendants and some less so, such as Michael Milliken.

The Bailey Law Group are next door at Suite 1350 on L Street, Washington having increased thei offices from 10,000 sq feet to 30,000 sq feet.Dicinson Wright who usedto be on L street have moved to newer bigger offices 1875 Eye St., N.W., Greenberg Traurig are another very interesting firm of lawyers with interesting cliients.

Boeing will cut outsourcing on 787 and on future projects - More Airbus 380's delivered

Boeing vice president for engineering Mike Denton has confirmed the company will scale back outsourced engineering on the next 787 variant (787 - 9) and reduce participation by outside partners on all future commercial aircraft programmes.

His remarks were aimed at the Boeing members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), a union now entering the final month of negotiations on a new labour contract.

They also indicate how big a mistake the 787's once-heralded production system relying on six major partners in three countries to make vast financial, engineering and production contributions to the Dreamliner.

Boeing mistakenly judged that its partners were capable of participating beyond build-to-print work, and then compounded that error by failing to track their progress he says. "Our engineers and production workers are basically correcting the problems that should have never come to us in the first place -- problems that are the result of the partners really not being done."

In a major volte face he went on in a company podcast today ... "We will probably do more of the design and even some of the major production for the next new airplanes ourselves as opposed to having it all out with the partners."

"We see that as building on lessons of the 787, taking advantage of the parts that were really good, but doing some course corrections so that we can not relive some of the harder lessons that we have experienced recently."

SPEEA, however, appears still far part with Boeing management on the issues. A mid-afternoon electroic message by Goforth on 30 October read: "SPEEA ends today's meeting early citing Boeing intransigence."

When will Dreamliner fly ? ScuttleBut says late '09 and if it works, enter service late 2010.

Airbus deliveries continue

Quantas have started using their first Airbus 380 on the Melbourne-Los Angeles services and from 24th October will operate the aircraft on some of its Sydney-Los Angeles services and from January will use it for some of its services to London via Singapore - wher it will compete with Singapore Airlines.

Emirates have taken delivery of their 2nd Airbus 380 for use on its Dubai-New York route which started operating on Wednesday 27 th October providing a daily service .

Two more 380's are scheduled for delivery to Emirates by the end of 2008.

German Typhoon EF2000 First visit at Cornfield Range

On the Western end of the Island of Vlieland off the Dutch coast is a live gunnery range NATO codename Cornfeld. A German Typhoon E2000 2 seat trainer , visited on 28th October to practice strafing with 100 bullets from the wing mounted Mauser machine gun. More pics at link.

Picture above from here and a 3 minute recording of the event can be overheard here, in which the pilot says they are tight on fuel having flown from Neuberg - home location of Jagdgeschwader 74 which have been on QRA alert since January this year .

With increased activity from Russian bombers, maintaining aircraft on QRA for the RAF is a major burden, while the Tornados now guarding the Falkland Islands need to be replaced ( planned October 2008).

Many believe that the RAF simply can’t spare a frontline Typhoon squadron for an extended overseas commitment (Afghanistan) , though others expect that a much smaller, brief deployment might still be made to demonstrate the capability. (For purposes PR etc).

Plans to deploy RAF Typhoons to Afghanistan in July were abandoned - meanwhile with just two frontline squadrons operational and a shrinking Tornado F.Mk 3 fighter force, maintaining the RAF’s existing fighter commitments is becoming problematic.

Barack Obama is a Neocon in Disguise (and only thinly disguised)

Barack Obama's deceptive message on foreign policymake him a neocon in sheep's clothing.

For those who think Obama wants to shrink the US military footprint, read Renewing American Leadership by Barack Obama -From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007 Journal of Foreign Relations , especially the section "Revitalising the Military" ...

"We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness."

see - Thursday, July 24, 2008 Obama's trumpet sounds an uncertain note - bringing down the walls .. or putting them up ?

Also read : Barack Obama: Neocon Warrior - Remarks of Senator Barack Obama to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs April 23, 2007

Thanks for tips to aangirfan

Hedge funds get trimmed on Frankfurt Bourse

Short sellers got caught short on VW stock which reached €1,005.01,yesterday valuing the company at €296 billion or US$370.4 billion, closing slughtly lower at €945 - this morning shares fell to €528.09 ... Hedge funds are said to have lost €20 billion (£15.9 billion) and €30 billion covering their positions.

What's that handy German word to describe the euphoria at enjoying the losses and misfortunes of others ? ...schadenfruede

Technical details of how Porsche pulled off the Stuttgart sting.

Drax in major biomass energy investments.

On October 1st Drax Power Station announced a £10 million (US$18 million) Engineering, Procurement and Construction (”EPC”) contract with Doosan Babcock Energy Limited (”Doosan Babcock”) to supply direct injection biomass co-firing systems to all six coal-fired generating units at the 4,000MW Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire. These will be in operation by end 2009.(Doosan Babcock have been involved in large scale refurbishment projects in Kosovo and Serbia. )

Co-firing involves the mixing and burning of renewable biomass materials with coal and, given the carbon neutral status of biomass, is a recognised carbon abatement technology that has significant potential to reduce carbon dioxide (”CO2”) emissions from coal-fired power stations.

The direct injection firing systems represent a major component of the new co-firing facility at Drax and are designed to receive and transport processed biomass materials to the power station’s coal-fired boilers.

On completion, the biomass co-firing facility will be the largest of its type in the world, which alongside Drax’s existing co-firing capability will provide a total of 500MW of renewable electricity, or the equivalent output of over 600 wind turbines. In the half year report the company announced that the plant maintained a high plant availability of 93%.

3 new biomass plants planned jointly with Siemens

Drax have also announced plans to build, own and operate three 300MW biomass-fired generation plants in the UK at a cost of £2 Bn (Immingham , Drax and one to be decided). It has entered into a joint development agreement with Siemens (whose turbine technology will be used in the new plants) which will also own 40 % of the new business.

With all 3 plants running in 2014 Drax will supply 15 % of the UK's renewable power, and 10 % of total UK electricity supply. Commitments to construction contracts and financing will be finalised in the next 12-18 months.

Drax's equity investment will be funded by a cut in the dividend from 2010. The new distribution policy targets a pay-out ratio of 50 % of underlying earnings from 2010 onwards.

The Fed are are beyond clever. They are insane. How M3 disappeared ... and why.

It is worth re-visiting what we noted about the new Man at the Fed, Benny Bernanke - Wednesday, January 03, 2007 The Mysterious case of the disappearing M3 relating to the decision to cease publishing M3. It was on March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System announced that they .....

" will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in this release....... M3 does not appear to convey any additional information about economic activity that is not already embodied in M2 and has not played a role in the monetary policy process for many years. Consequently, the Board judged that the costs of collecting the underlying data and publishing M3 outweigh the benefits."

Senator Jim Bunning asked (the new) Fed Chairman Benny Bernanke why M3 was no longer published - who persisted that it is merely a cost saving exercise. It was of course touching that the great man responsible for Trillions was so careful with the candle ends.

However this piece of statistical legerdemain was critical and central to the concealment of the final splurge of insane monetary inflation allowing the boyz in the backroom to really let rip on all their debt shuffling which precipitated most (but not all) the world's banks into a credit crisis as they finally had to prepare balance sheets that bore a reemblance to the truth.

Simultaneously (almost) Michael Nystrom on January 10, 2006 published Is This Rally for Real? And Other Thoughts in which he listed the bearish points for 2006....

Rising short term interest rates
Inverted yield curve
Housing bubble slowdown / pop in the works (See this excellent article by Gary Schilling)
Massive slowdown and/or bankruptcy at GM and/or Ford on the horizon
Rising unemployment in home building, financial services, and manufacturing due to 3 & 4
Rising energy costs
Corresponding slowdown in consumerism due to 5 & 6
Stock market's four year / presidential cycle pointing down
Rising trade deficit
Rising budget deficit
Rising national debt
New Iranian oil bourse in the works to price oil in euros this spring
Falling dollar as a result of most of the above, but especially #12
New guy on the job at the Fed to deal with all of the above.

Which in the afterglow of hindsight, highlights the lily strewn path of dalliance led by the Fed and Ben.

Nystrom goes on however with some fascinating remarks on Bernanke's Fed speech on deflation (Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here).

"I remember the first time I heard his printing press remarks -- I was blown away. I didn't know who this guy was, other than that he was a new guy and that I thought the line about the printing press was an extremely irresponsible thing to be saying. I was sure that he would be fired, or at least reprimanded for his remarks, but look where he is now. Shows you how much I know. "

"This is what I gleaned from the speech last night: Bernanke tells a story, that if an alchemist invented a way to make gold in unlimited quantities, then released this news to the world and said he was going to start making and selling unlimited amounts of gold, the price would drop immediately, before the Alchemist made or sold a single ounce. He goes on to compare the Fed to that alchemist. He talks about the printing press, then says, "By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services."

"Then it struck me - this elimination of M3 in March is the credible threat.. It's a bluff. First they juice M3 like it is the end of the world (or 1999), and then they turn the lights out on the statistics. "

"Since we're all in the dark, the only thing we can assume is that the Fed is inflating like there is no tomorrow. But they really don't want to do that -- monetize debt, that is -- it is not good for their balance sheet -- so instead they engineer this bluff. Everyone believes it, and they (we) act accordingly, bidding up stocks and gold."

"If you don't think the Fed is that clever, I encourage you to read Bernanke's speech. It is a long treatise on stimulating demand and causing inflation in the event that interest rates fall to zero."

"After reading the speech, you may find that they are beyond clever. They are insane."

Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital was on Bloomberg again yesterday, reminding everyone on Wall Street of what he said in August 2006 ..."The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship ...I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States."

Schiff is the author of two books Crash Proof (Amazon - Review ..."Schiff argues that the U.S. economy is going to hell, and that clueless consumers, opportunistic Wall Streeters and pandering politicians are carrying the handbasket. Schiff's screeching tone is a bit grating ...That doesn't mean you shouldn't take him with a grain of salt, but this book was published in 2007, and in mid-2008, Schiff's forecasts of a weakening dollar, rising gold prices, a bursting real-estate bubble and strong foreign stock markets were spot-on..." )and The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets and was economic advisor to Ron Paul in his failed Presidential campaign.... during which he said;

"We need a plan that stimulates savings and production not more ofthe reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess inthe first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to astep in the right direction. If you want meaningful change - for thebetter that is - Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of deliveringit. The others merely promise to continue the failed policies that areat the root of our current economic problems."

It cannot be said that no-one saw this train crash ***coming, or the reasons for it.

*** Schiff describes the proposed merger of Chrysler and GM as a a slo -mo crash of 2 garbage trucks.

First Snow in London and Eastern Seaboard

Greek Yoghurt, a freshly plucked and sliced fig, a drizzle of honey and warm Mediterranean sunshine......aaaahhh !!!

From War zone to Main street in a few years ... Ident is a reality.

We first wrote Anh Dhuong onWednesday, December 12, 2007

The "Bomb Lady" and finding out who you are - JEFF and what it means for you
Ardent Observervations and the Istanbullian drew our attention to "The Bomb Lady" Nguyet Anh Duong a disarmingly pretty Vietnamese / US weapons scientist and an article in Wapo about her recently receiving the the National Security Medal for significant contribution to the nation in activities related to national security.The blast from the thermobaric, or vacuum, bomb maintains its energy over a longer time and distance,enabling it to kill people hunkered deep underground.

"Her work is a significant reason that few U.S. soldiers died in hand-to-hand combat inside the Taliban's vast network of caves and tunnels in Afghanistan. Not only did she help us win the war, but we avoided the loss of many lives had we had to clear caves in a more traditional manner," said Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter presented Duong with the 2007 Service to America National Security Medal from the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service (PPS).
Duong dedicated her award to "the 58,000 names on the wall of the Vietnam War memorial and the 260,000 Vietnamese who died in order for people like me to earn a second chance at freedom."

She received a standing ovation.

(Pic of glamorous granny Senator Harman at a PPS Dinner)

The Bomb Lady's current e-mail address is anh.duong@navy.mil she also favours pink pearlescent nail polish (against her daughters wishes)

Born into an anti communist family, who fled to the US and were eventually granted asylum She graduated from the University of Maryland with both a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering and a B.S. degree in Computer Science and was launched on a 23 year distinguished career as a a weaposn scientist..

In 1983 she started working as a Chemical Engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division.

From 1991-1999, she managed all Navy basic, exploratory research and advanced development programs in High Explosives.

From 1999-2002, she managed all NSWC Indian Head's technical programs in Explosives and Undersea Weapons, from concept through engineering development to production and demilitarization.

She successfully assembled and led a team of scientists and engineers to develop the payload for a new weapon, now known as the thermobaric bomb, then proceeded to limited production and delivery to the Air Force, all in an unprecedented period of 67 days.

Nguyet Anh successfully led the development and transition of a total of 10 high performing explosives into 18 different U.S. weapons in the past 12 years, which is an unprecedented record of its kind.

She served as a U.S. Delegate at the NATO AC310 Subgroup I for Explosives, and chairman/member of many national and international Panels/Technical Steering Groups.

Since 2002 Nguyet Anh has been Director of Science and Technology of Naval Surface Warfare Center, U.S. Department of Defense,(Pentagon) where she is responsible for Indian Head's overall technical investment strategies, guiding and overseeing research and development programs in all areas of science and technology and focusing these efforts toward the creation of future weapon generations for the United States.

Duong's most recent innovation, the Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities (JEFF) project or "lab in a box," analyzes biometrics in the field. It will be delivered to Iraq at the beginning of 2008, the Navy said, to help distinguish insurgents from civilians. (Useful Power Point presentation here) (No.NO. not useful - essential reading 1st page pic at top of post)

"The best missile is worthless if you don't know who to shoot," Duong said.
Thomas A. Betro, director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service explains the military has been scanning the irises and taking the fingerprints of Iraqis, feeding a biometrics data base in West Virginia. To date, a few ad hoc labs have processed about 85,000 pieces of evidence taken from weapons caches or roadside devices. Duong's mobile forensic labs, with an initial budget of $34 million, will be deployed all over Iraq.


"What would worry me about this is that systems used by the Defense Department off American soil are going to find themselves migrating back to the U.S. … and turned on American residents," Steinhardt said.

Duong, supervised the "lab in a box" design.

Each collapsible, sand-colored, 20 x 20 foot foot unit has its own generator and satellite link(see sexy pic of the facility) . If things go as planned, data will beamed to the Biometric Fusion Center to check against more than a million Iraqi fingerprints. Hundreds of Marines will become scen of crime investigators - donning rubber gloves and laying aside their weapons.

The next stage is to miniaturize, create "a backpack lab," so that soldiers who encounter a suspect "could find out within minutes" if he's on a terrorist watch list, Duong said. "A war fighter needs to know one of three things: Do I let him go? Keep him? Or shoot him on the spot? In Vietnam, our guys didn't have this tool."

There are some interesting jobs being offered ...

Now how would such a mobile identification facility rest with a nationwide biometric Based ID card ?

Now this technology is hitting UK streets .... This was forecast in 2004 .... Lockheed Martin Information Systems, Seabrook, Md., which built the FBI's fingerprint system, was awarded $5 million by the Pentagon on Sept. 10 2004 for the first year of a five-year contract to begin building the military's fingerprint system.

Company officials issued a statement announcing the contract, but declined requests for an interview through a spokesman because of the "sensitivity of the project."

Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program, said the Pentagon's biometric efforts are worthwhile — as long as they focus outward.

The BBC report today ...On-street fingerprint checks plan

Hand-held fingerprint scanners enabling on-the-spot identity checks are to be made available to all UK police forces.

The devices, about the size of a mobile phone, will be rolled out from 2010 under a scheme managed by the National Policing Improvement Agency. The NPIA says trials of the devices have been a "stunning success"

The devices compare prints against the records of the 7.5m people on the police national biometric database ... and of course EU / USA / Interpol databases are a click away?

The initial phase of the the scheme is expected to cost police forces £30-£40m.

Apparently fingerprints collected will not be saved..... does anyone believe that ?

Who needs an ID card when you were given one at birth ?

How soon before they collect your fingerprints at UK airports for all passengers ?

Haider's lover, Stefan Petzner, steps down as party leader

Stefan Petzner, a 27-year-old former Beuty and fashion journalist became successor to the far right-wing party Alliance of the Future of Austria after Jorg Haider died on October 11th .

Just two weeks later, he was removed from his post. This came after he revealed on Austrian radio that he and Haider had been lovers for five years.

“We had a special relationship,” Petzner had said of the 58-year-old conservative extremist. “He was the man of my life… He often said that I was his.”

This announcement was preceded by a television interview with Krone TV in which Petzner was chain-smoking and crying uncontrollably, talking about his mentor. “I only had him, and now I am alone,” he said. Tongues began to wag.

Now we are told that , Haider had spent his final hours in a(n un named ) gay bar in the southern Austrian town of Klagenfurt, leading to the intoxication from which he suffered at the time of his car crash. It’s a final ironic nail in the coffin of a man whose anti-Semitic and reactionary principles led him to be called the closest thing to a Nazi that Austria has seen since the fall of the Third Reich.

Haider was married with two children at the time of his death. He had voted repeatedly against the expansion of gay rights. He was virulently anti-immigration, yet strangely was in favour of Turkey’s entering the EU.

Numerous German-language blogs, including one on shortnews.de, described Haider’s bisexuality as “an open secret.” Only the revelation of Petzner’s personal liaison contained any news to an informed Austrian.

So we are told.

Haider was supervised by Mossad

The Jewish leader of the Austrian liberal party (FPÖ), has admitted that for many years he co-operated with Mossad.

“I cooperated to the news magazine “profile” appearing in Vienna abaout Jorg Heider up to my retreat from the policy with the Mossad”, said the journalist and journalist in the year 2005.

Peter Sichrovsky worked in and the 90's 80's also for German publications, for “Der Spiegel” and the “South German newspaper”, and was joint founder of the Viennese newspaper “The Standard”. “I wanted to help Israel and did nothing illegal. I am not James Bond

Sichrovsky was at the beginning of 2003 the FPÖ delegate in the European parliament.

Apparently claimed Sichrovsky “Israel wanted Jörg Haider as bridge to Arab countries, with those no official contacts existed, uses”, said it. (wiwo.de < http://www.wiwo.de/politik/ex-fpoe-abgeordneter-half-israels-geheimdienst-102476/ >)

See more Also see an article in Searchlight the anti - fascist mag of the UK far left article in April 2000 -Who is Peter Sichrovsky? Peter Sichrovsky, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) MEP of Jewish origin wheeled out to front Jörg Haider’s sudden resignation as party chief, enjoys a special status.... in which he is described as ..

In addition, he has defended Haider’s infamous claim that the Nazi concentration camps were “penal camps” by attacking those who say Auschwitz-Birkenau was an “extermination camp”. His grounds for this twisted logic are that the term “extermination camp” is Nazi phraseology, even though the Nazis themselves never used this term. It is, therefore, not surprising that Sichrovsky cannot understand why the two activists of the FPÖ’s youth organisation who desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Eisenstadt have been branded “political culprits”.

But it is for Zionism and the state of Israel that Sichrovsky reserves special venom, deliberately misquoting the country’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and resurrecting the canard about the wartime Hungarian Zionist leader, Rudolf Kastner, who controversially tried to rescue Jews from the clutches of Adolf Eichmann and was later accused of being a collaborator. In the 1980s, Perdition, a play on the same theme by the left-wing playwright Jim Allen, caused outrage in Britain.

June 2nd 2005 the Times also ran a story Mossad spied on far-right Austrian by Roger Boyes.

THE ISRAELI secret service spied on Jörg Haider, the right-wing Austrian populist, using one of his closest aides to gather information on his contacts with Arab dictators. Peter Sichrovsky said that he had been a Mossad informant for five years until retiring from politics in 2002.

“I wanted to help Israel and certainly did not do anything wrong,” said Herr Sichrovsky who was secretary-general of Herr Haider’s Freedom party and a member of the European Parliament. The Austrian state prosecutor said yesterday that he would open an investigation to determine whether Herr Sichrovsky should be prosecuted. Spying for a foreign power carries a jail sentence of up to three years in Austria.

intersting chap Mr Peter Sichrovsky ...

Austrians agog at wooden airplane

26th October and Austria commemorates the Declaration of Neutrality, signed in 1955. On the Heldenplatz in Central Vienna, 700,000 citizens had a knees up. The declaration which is part of the Constitution followed the Austrian State Treaty of May 15th marking the withdrawal of the troops of occupation of the Western Allies after WWII and officially establishing Austrian independence and sovereignty....Allied troops left on October 25th.

Not missing the chance Österreichs Bundesheer chose the national holiday to display their 1: 1 wooden Typhoon / Eurofighter whilst tanks rumbled past and helicopters buzzed overhead. More pics

What this neutral country will do with these weapons is a political problem few wish to discuss or answer. Some explanation how they were supplied by Germany here.

Rolf Steiniger in his book Der Staatsvertrag. Österreich im Schatten von deutscher Frage und Kaltem Krieg.Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2005, 198 Pages provides a unique and fascinating insight into the position of Austria, the Allies interets in the Anschluss, the post war question and the the curent position of the Austrians uin Europe. Brief review at Rolf's website here. See also