Gangsters settle in in Kosovan Government Thaci promotes Fehim Mujota to Head the Kosovo Security Forces

The Kosovo Prime Minister and gangster Hashim Thaci has appointed a former guerrilla fighter as the breakaway state’s first defense minister.

Fehim Mujota has been appointed to the Ministry for Security Forces. Mujota, from the ranks of Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo(Partia Demokratike e Kosovës (PDK)(website), will oversee the establishment of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), a 2,500-strong formation that is to be trained by NATO.

Thaci's party emerged from the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian separatist guerillas who fought Serbian forces during the territory’s 1998-1999 war. Mujota’s appointment comes less than two months after Kosovo’s constitution took effect.

Kosovo, whose ethnic Albanians account for around 90% of its population of two million, declared independence from Serbia in February and has been recognized by 43 countries including the United States and most of the European Union, but not Russia.

Parliamentary elections were held in Kosovo under UN control on 17 November 2007. After early results, Hashim Thaçi who was on course to gain 35 % of the vote, claimed victory for PDK, and stated his intention to declare independence. Thaçi formed a coalition with current President Fatmir Sejdiu's Democratic League which was in second place with 22% of the vote. The turnout at the election was particularly low with most Serbs refusing to vote.

This famous picture shows General Wesley Clark in a congratulatory handshake with Hashim Thaci, leader of the KLA, which under the noses of Genral "Janus" Jackson of KFOR had murdered or ethnically cleansed thousands of Kosovo Serbs and had destroyed more Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries than were destroyed in 500 years under the Ottoman Empire.

Next to Thaci is Bernard Kouchner, Chief U.N. administrator in Kosovo and now French Foreign Minister. British General Sir Michael "Janus" Jackson, and Agim Ceku, who commanded the Croatian Army in "Operation Storm" that ethnically cleansed 250,000 Serbs from Krajina and murdered thousands and who now commands the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), the thinly disguised successor to the KLA.

Agim Ceku has not been the subject of any ICTY indictment, he was briefly detained in Slovenia in October 2003 and in Hungary in March 2004 on the basis of an Interpol warrant issued by Serbia. Çeku was quickly released in both instances following pressure by UNMIK .

On 10 March 2006 Çeku was elected the first Prime Minister of Kosovo by the Kosovo Assembly. After being sworn in, he declared his support for Kosovo independence, whilst promising to protect the rights of the Serbian minority.

Çeku's appointment was backed by former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who resigned in early 2005 after the ICTY had indicted him for war crimes. In his first one hundred days in office, Çeku prioritized the implementation of the UN-endorsed "Standards" for good governance and multi-ethnicity, earning praise from UN Kosovo chief Soren Jessen-Petersen and Contact Group countries.

He stated that he would found a new political party after stepping down as PM for Thaci to take over , disspelling rumours that he would join the Reformist Party ORA. However, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Kosovo on 10 April 2008, and did not rule out that the party would unify with ORA.

It should be noted that the KLA, with whom the US were allied, at one time was designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Of course, this is the same KLA about whom Senator Joe Lieberman said: "The United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same values and principles . . . Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." (Washington Post, Apr.28, 1999).

The Boy David Milliband has not thought to provide any guidance about the gangsters taking over the government of Kosovo or the UK Government official line on the matter....

Government even more unpopular refusing to extend the role of the Gangmaster Licensing Authority.

Regular readers will know we have followed the efforts of Paul Whitehouse at the Gangmaster Licensing Authority (GLA). He was a lousy Chief Constable in Sussex and was allowed to resign and collect his pension .. or be sacked.

He (and an excellent team) have done a terrific job at the GLA and the decision not to extend the reach of the body outside the supply of labour or use workers to provide services in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, shellfish gathering and food processing and packaging.food growing and preparation is insane. As he said on the BBC4 Today programme on Tuesday 5th August (BBC audio): "I don't understand why if it's right to prevent exploitation in agriculture and food processing, it's not right to prevent exploitation elsewhere."

John Hutton, spoke at the TUC conference in Brighton last year and claimed existing regulations could deal with worker abuse better than an extension of the Gangmasters Act. Hutton suggested the newly extended CDM regulations could resolve worker abuse.

John Thompson, president of Ucatt, said: “The CDM regulations are to do with health and safety, and have no meaningful connection to agency labour. We are infuriated at this suggestion.”

In March, John Hutton, secretary of state for business, enterprise and regulatory reform (BERR), said there was no need to extend the GLA to construction because “agency workers represent a very small element, some 1.5-3% of the construction workforce”. he has also expressed the view that ther should not be more legilsation but better regulation and enforcement.

Seventy seven workers were killed in construction industry nationwide in 2006 and Construction union leaders say the number of deaths in the industry is 'unacceptably high'.

According to figures from the HSE, there were 981 major injuries in the construction sector caused by slips, trips or falls in 2005/06.

As a consequence of the enforcement of HSE laws the rate of reported fatal injuries to all workers in the industry between 1999/00 and 2005/06 has fallen by around 35 %.

Trade unions have called for its remit to be extended to the UK construction industry, but lobby group the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) opposes any extension of the GLA's current powers.

Anne Fairweather, head of public policy at the REC, said: “There are issues that need to be addressed, but we don't think the GLA has proved it can drive out rogue traders, and until it does its powers should not be extended to the construction industry.”

Having seen how successful the GLA has been in enforcing the minimum wage, working conditions, ensuring holiday and maternity pay entitlements , safety at work and being transported , it is not surprising that the REC are resistant to anyone looking over their shoulder.

On emajor crticism that the regulation costs money , but the GLA is effectively, but indirectly self financing - More than £2 million in VAT payments alone are due to be paid to the Exchequer from gangmaster businesses, thanks to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA).


The GLA expect a potential net income of £2,075,000 will be received by UK government from gangmaster licensing in VAT payments alone, working out at an average £51,887 per gangmaster.

In addition to the VAT, these businesses declared that they supplied 6,193 workers which may have led to an increase in national insurance payments and individual tax payments by the workers, as well as the corporation tax that the companies would be liable to pay themselves.

So far the Government have not made a final decsion but thye will need some funds to keep the party going and they don't want a dust up with their paymasters.

Nectarines in Brandy .....

Following on earlier post - Thanksgiving ... Christmas .. it's almost on us, get ready!! here are the finished jars, quietly maturing on a shelf in the garage.... and there is 1/3 rd of the brandy bottle left over.

Boeing share prices jumps - again - closes tdoay US$ 65.50 up 70 cents = 1.08% on dayy

Boeing share price took a jump yesterday with some heavy buying (opened today 3 cents up US$64.83). Maybe it is due to the remorseless search for lightening the weight, improving fuel efficiencies of their hugely successful airliners - could it be due to the fascinating news that FAA certification has been given for the new carbon brakes designed for the Next-Generation 737.If so, take note GM / Ford / Chrysler.

The Carbon brakes weigh 700 pounds (320 kg) less than high-capacity steel brakes supplied by the cheese eating surrender monkeys at Safran group , Messier-Bugatti (they first introduced carbon brakes on the Airbus A310 in 1986), also entered service last week when Boeing delivered a Next-Generation 737-700 to Delta Air Lines -- the first of 10 737-700s the airline will receive over the next several years (550 lbs - 250 KG less on the Next-Generation 737-600s and -700s.

Reduced weight makes a major contribution to fuel burn and nasty CO2 / NO2 emissions.

Delta Air Lines 737-700's also feature Blended Winglets (wing tip extensions) to improve operating and fuel efficiency simultaneously.

The Messier-Bugatti SepCarb® III OR A which incorporate a special treatment allows them to more effectively resist the oxidation to which the brake disks are susceptible as a result of temperature, humidity or some de-icing products. They are now fitted on all the Airbus A319s and A320s and on the C-17 Globemaster IIIs that are now coming off the production line.

Boeing adding Messier-Bugatti of the Safran Group and Goodrich's Aircraft Wheels and Brakes group to its 7E7 Dreamliner global supplier team as providers of electric brakes in November 2004.

Messier-Bugatti has been recognized as one of Boeing’s “Silver” suppliers, representing fewer than 2% of the aircraft manufacturer’s suppliers, and capable of delivering 98% of equipment on time, with a quality rate of 99.7%.

The first use of carbon brakes was on F1 racing cars. Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in his McLaren-Mercedes on Sunday, July 6, marking the 250th victory for a car equipped with Messier-Bugatti carbon brakes since the first victory by Alain Prost’s McLaren in the Brazilian Grand Prix in 1984.

Perhaps it was Motley Fool who pointed out yesterday ..."These stocks are cheap In fact, many good stocks are cheap right now. Boeing (NYSE: BA) .. hit a 3 year low."

Thermi (a)te cutter charges used on 9/11 - proof from EPA air quality records

The polished but someWhat threadbare fantasy that the US Government has promoted to explain the events on 9/11 is slowly eroding - the evidence is stacking up and the Expertise and experience of criticial authors is further establishing what really happened.

In an article published this week in the journal Environmentalist, chemical engineer Kevin Ryan collects evidence from EPA documents that suggest there was both Thermate and high-explosives in the debris from the WTC collapse. Ryan was formerly employed by Environmental Health Labs, a division of Underwriters Labs. He was fired for raising these and other questions.

Environmentalist - DOI 10.1007/s10669-008-9182-4

Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials
Kevin R. Ryan Æ James R. Gourley Æ Steven E. Jones

Abstract : Investigators monitoring air quality at the World Trade Center, after the September 11th attacks, found extremely high levels of volatile organic chemicals as well as unusual species that had never been seen before in structure fires. Data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate striking spikes in levels of benzene, styrene, and several other products of combustion.

These spikes occurred on specific dates in October and November 2001, and February 2002. Additionally, data collected by researchers at the University of California Davis showed similar spikes in the levels of sulfur and silicon compounds, and certain metals, in aerosols. To better explain these data, as well as the unusual detection of 1,3-diphenylpropane, the presence of energetic nanocomposites in the pile at Ground Zero is hypothesized.

Conclusion : The presence of energetic materials, specifically energetic nanocomposites, at GZ, has the potential to explain much of the unusual environmental data seen at the WTC. Thermite, discussed briefly above, is such a pyrotechnic mixture that cannot be easily extinguished and is a common component of energetic nanocomposites. Unusually high detections of sulfur, silicon, aluminum, copper, nickel, iron, barium, and vanadium might all be explained byphysical release of materials from such energetic nanocomposites.

Additionally, the detection of 1,3-DPP at the WTC supports this hypothesis. Finally, the spikes in VOCs, detected by EPA on specific dates, are more readily explained as a result of short-lived, violent fires caused by energetic materials.

Josh Mitteldorf considers the implications at Op ed news for the theory that controlled thermite cutter charges were used to bring down WTC1.WTC2 and WTC 7 (the last some time after the BBC told us it had fallen down). According to FEMA, WTC 7 collapsed at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. Since British Summer Time is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, the BBC reported the collapse of Building 7 at 4:54PM EST, a full 26 minutes before it collapsed.(You Tube video here)

The pic shows beautiful, glamorous, tight lipped, BBC correspondent Jane Standley live in New York on 9/11 reporting the collapse of Building WTC 7 (Saloman Brothers building as Gavin Esler called it, after it's previous major tenants) as it remains standing behind her (to the right of her in the distance in the picture).

Chief of Staff of the Air Force T. Michael Buzz Moseley is sacked his EO Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Tinsley suicides, nuclear bombs, more deaths

Those who read the recent post Sunday, July 20, 2008 SLICC and Air Force graft - "Buzz" Mosley KBE gets sacked - a tangled tale of incompetence will be up to speed on the reasons for the abrupt departure on 5 June 2008 Chief of Staff of the Air Force T. Michael Buzz Moseley after he was provided with the limited options by the Department of Defense of either resigning or being fired. He , along with Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne, the agency’s civilian head, were held accountable for failing to fully correct an erosion of nuclear-related performance standards.

This was directly related, it was publicly stated ,to Six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded on a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52H heavy bomber at Minot and transported to Barksdale. The nuclear warheads in the missiles were supposed to have been removed before taking the missiles from their storage bunker... although the the SLICC, the Senior Leader In-transit Conference Capsule was in there somewhere.

A Death is reported

Folks die every day. The sudden and unexpected death of Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Tinsley, Commander of Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska who suffered a gunshot wound to his chest late last Sunday night and was pronounced dead within a half hour, is perhaps more remarkable than most.

Tinsley’s wife and college-age daughter were home at the time.

Col. Richard Walberg, who assumed temporary command at Elmendorf Air Force Base after Tinsley’s death said the weapon used was "likely a handgun".

Tinsley was named base commander in May 2007. He had served as an F-15 instructor pilot, F-15C test pilot, wing weapons officer, exchange officer and instructor with the Royal Australian Air Force.

Perhaps of greater interest to those interested people who find these things of interest was his previous 22-month assignment as executive officer to the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Mosely.

Representatives of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will do a report and declare whether Tinsley’s cause of death was suicide, Walberg said. Such reports take about 30 days.

Walberg said Tinsley was not under investigation or undue stress. See here at Celtic Diba's Blue Oasis Regarding the death of BG Thomas Tinsley--I don't know what the Air Force considers "undue stress"... ..."The most encompassing of these issues (and one that has already led to other high-ranking resignations and suicides) involve the Air Force procurement procedures and some of the projects. One of the most controversial of those is the SLICC, the Senior Leader In-transit Conference Capsule...changed (during BG Tinsley's watch) from the "Comfort Capsule.""

They also make the fascinating point that ..."the day after BG Tinsley's death there were Hearings conducted by the Senate Committee on Armed Services related to the nominations of Michael Donley as the new Air Force Secretary and Gen. Norton Schwartz to be the AF chief of staff.

There were also more hearings related to "confidential matters" scheduled for two days afterwards (Air tanker procurement ?) .We'll never know whether or not BG Tom Tinsley was contacted to participate in any of those. We'll never know if he received information of potential testimony in future investigations. Even if that is not the case, it's rather foolish to say that Tinsley was not under any "undue stress" when logic dictates otherwise."

“As far as stress, sir, this job, by nature of being an Air Force officer in a nation at war, is stressful,” Wallberg said. “Undue stress, no.”

Col. Thomas Bergeson is the former chief of the Aviation Division of Multinational Forces in Iraq.
and has taken over the post of Brig. Gen. Thomas Tinsley. Bergeson was supposed to head to North Carolina to lead a fighter wing there but was reassigned after Tinsley's death.

A God forsaken place in Alaska must have been a real buzz to Tinsley and his family after EO to the Head of the Air Force in Washington ?

Well up to a point Lord Copper

Those with capacious (even capricious) memories might recall an article by Dave Lindorff - The Mystery of Minot: Loose nukes and a cluster of dead airmen raise troubling questions - which first appeared in the October 22nd Issue of the American Conservative magazine or may have stumblled across it in the Baltimore Chronicle November 21st 2007.

Dave Lindorff is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for Impeachment The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (Amazon) . His work is available here

The article covers what was then known of the incident when a a B-52H Stratofortress armed with six nuclear-tipped AGM-29 Advanced Cruise missiles, left Minot AFB for Barksdale AFB In Louisiana ... and nobody noticed for 36 hours.

Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served as US Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, told the Washington Post (Sept 23rd 2007) , “I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any incident more disturbing.”

This Air Force forum has some intersting observations from experienced (claimed) crewmen about handling nuclear tipped weapons.

Perhaps, as disturbing says the American Conservative, is that more than a month after the incident, Pentagon investigators had completely ignored a peculiar cluster of six deaths, during the weeks immediately preceding and following the flight, of personnel at the two Air Force bases involved in the incident and Air Force Commando Operations headquarters.

Sufficient to outline what is known here , read the article for the full stories ...

On July 20, 1st Lt. Weston Kissel, a 28-year-old B-52 pilot from Minot, died in a motorcycle accident while on home leave in Tennessee.

20-year-old Adam Barrs, another Minot B-52 pilot (at 20 years old ?) , died on July 5 in Minot when a car he was riding in, driven by another Minot airman, Stephen Garrett, went off the road, hit a tree, and caught fire. Airman Garrett was brought to the hospital in critical condition and has since been charged with negligent homicide.

Two more Air Force personnel, Senior Airman Clint Huff, 29, of Barksdale AFB, and his wife Linda died on Sept. 15 in nearby Shreveport, Louisiana, when Huff reportedly attempted to pass a van in a no-passing zone on his motorcycle, and the van made a left-hand turn, striking them.

2 reported suicides also took place within days of the rogue flight - Todd Blue, a 20-year-old airman who was in a unit that guarded weapons at Minot *" a response force member assigned to the 5th Security Forces Squadron") . He reportedly shot himself in the head on Sept. 11 while on a visit to his family in Wytheville, Virginia. Local police investigators termed his death a suicide.(Air Force Times) (Wordpress blogs about Todd Blue) Lt. Col. Paul Wheeless, the commander of the 5th Security Forces Munitions Squadron was fired as a result of the nuclear armed B 52 flight. The Minot AFB website has an interesting article by Lt Col Paul wheelas on November 11th 2006 about Service discipline and standards.

The second suicide, on Aug. 30, was John Frueh, a special forces weather commando at the Air Force’s Special Operations command headquartered at Hurlburt AFB in Florida. Hurlburt’s website says, “Every night, as millions of Americans sleep peacefully under the blanket of freedom,” Air Force special Operations commandos work “in deep dark places, far away from home, risking their lives to keep that blanket safe.” Frueh was a veteran of special forces combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq

Frueh, 33, a married father of two who had just received approval for promotion from captain to major, reportedly flew from Florida to Portland, Oregon, for a friend’s wedding.

He never showed up. Instead, he called on Aug. 29, the day the missiles were loaded, from an interstate pull-off just outside Portland to say he was going for a hike in a park nearby. (It is not clear why he was at a highway rest stop as he had no car.) A day later, back in Portland, he rented a car at the airport, again calling his family.

After he failed to appear at the wedding, his family filed a missing person’s report with the Portland police.

The Sheriff’s Department in remote Skamania County, Washington, found Frueh’s rental car ten days later on the side of a road nearly 120 miles from the airport in a remote area of Badger Peak. Search dogs found his body in the woods. His death was ruled a suicide, though neither the sheriff’s investigator nor the medical examiner would give details. What makes this alleged suicide odd, however, is that the sheriff reports that Frueh had with him a knapsack containing a GPS locator and a videocam—odd equipment for someone intent on ending his life.

However Lindorff doesn't make it clear , however mystwerious Frueh's death was, what connection he had with barksdale of the flight from Minot.

Frueh's last reported phone call at Portland airport came on the same day, August 30, of the Minot / Barksdale B 52 . Frueh's position in the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command "weather operations" would have given him access to a highly classified information. (Wayne Madsen)

More details / news reports of deaths at cryptogon

General Ante Gotovina , French citizen, Croatian hero - a potted history of his mysterious military and criminal past

Ante Gotovina was born on October 12th 1955 on the Adriatic Sea island of Pasman (near Zadar). He was 18 when re left to join the French Foreign Legion and became a member of the 2nd Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment after qualifying from the Parachutist Training School at Pau, and joined the elite Commandos de Recherche et d'Action en Profondeur.

During those years, he met his “brother of arms”, Dominique Erulin, whose brother, Philippe is well known in France for his "heavy" past in Algeria.

Gotovina participated in Foreign Legion operations in Djibouti, Kolwezi in Zaire and Ivory Coast. After five years of service, he left the Legion with the rank of chief corporal and obtained French nationality in 1979.

During the 1980’s, Gotovina worked for a variety of French private security companies, including KO International company, which is brother of VHP Security. This firm is known as a cover for the Service d'action civique (SAC), specialists of shady actions for the Gaullist movement.

KO International also assured at that time Jean-Marie Le Pen’s personal security.

In May 1981, with Erulin, Gotovina helped the French editor, Jean-Marie Mouchard, a close friend of Le Pen, freeing Mouchard’s press La Seyne sur Mer occupied by CGT strikers.

Gotovina and Erulin then fled to Latin America, where they trained right-wing paramilitary formations, notably in Argentina and Guatemala.

Sometimes in France sometimes in South America, Gotovina’s name was registered in French police records for the robbery of jewellery in Paris in 1981 with Erulin. In 1986, he was condemned to five years imprisonment, though he was released early in September 1987 for reasons unknown , but guessed at.

On the 30th of October, 1990, Gotovina, with two other accomplices, Paul Rochat and Christian Grégoire, took a certain Gérard Tourmetz hostage for several days in Paris. Tourmetz had to pay 350.000 Francs to his jailers before he went to the police. Gotovina fled after his accomplices were arrested.

In 1993, he was convicted by default to two years in prison due to participation in an unlawful arrest, kidnapping and extortion. In 1995, he was sentenced to 30 months for extortion. All these crimes and the imprisonment are denied by Gotovina’s attorneys, arguing that France would have never given a passport in 1995 and renewed it in 2001 if their client had been a convicted criminal on the run. Zut Alors, mais, non!

During the 1990’s, his traces are found in Paraguay. There in 1991, in a bar in Iguac, his destiny was to be changed forever. He met some Croatian refugees, who told him about the massacres of Croatian police agents in Borovo Selo (on the outskirts of Vukovar). ghe decided to return to his native country, and to offer his services for its independence and right some ancient wrongs.

Once in Croatia, he climbed military echelons in high speed thanks to his military training and skills - qualities that few Croatian soldiers had at that time. First he joined the 1st Guard Brigade “Tigers” of Croatian Army with the task of training new recruits.

Soon he left his task in order to fight in Novska region (along the Bosnian border, in Slavonia) where he was wounded.

On the 9th of October, 1992, Gotovina was appointed as Commander of the sixth operational zone, later Split military district. It is not known if the Minister of Defence, Gojko Susak and the President, Franjo Tudjman were informed of Gotovina’s past. However they could not do without the former legionary’s precious services at that time.


Ante Gotovina as Major General of Croatian army

In November 1994, Gotovina became Major General he was to launch the Blitz Operation Storm on the 4th of August, 1995 and liberated Krajina, which was occupied by Serbian separatists since 1991, in only 3 days.

Storm Operation saved 230.000 Bosnians besieged by Serbians in Bihac, although a UN security zone in Eastern Bosnia along the Croatian border, had been there for over three years. It was claimed this ended a Yugoslavian War creating the necessary military conditions, which would lead to Dayton Accords.

In August 1995, Gotovina became General. From the 12th of March, 1996 until the 29th of September, 2000, he was the Chief Inspector of Croatian Army.

In September 2000 however, new Croatian President, Stjepan Mesic ordered General Gotovina and six other generals into early retirement after they refused to co-operate with war crimes probes.

Gotovina was also accused of plotting a military coup by the editor of Croatian weekly Nacional, Ivo Pukanic.

His name was crossed out of military staff.

Gotovina was a French citizen, he had a criminal past which the French Ambassador and French military attaches in Zagreb and members of the secret service station in that embassy must have known about.

Despite this, he was never chased, and in May 2001, only two months before the ICTY indictment was released, Gotovina went to the French embassy to submit a request for a new passport after his had expired. After submitting the forms, Gotovina went for a drink with the French military attaché and two other military officials of the embassy to the Boeing Café, only 50m from the embassy.

4 days later , Gotovina came to pick up his new passport and he again went for a drink with his friends from the embassy.

According to law, Gotovina should have been arrested the moment he stepped foot in the French embassy if a warrant was issued for his arrest. Instead of arresting him and requesting his extradition, they gave him a new passport, and once the ICTY indictment against him was released, the embassy did not say a word.

Today, they decline on commenting on the case. It would appear that the French know that all these cases were only part of a political scuffle between the left and right wings, and with the arrival of Chirac in power, it is thought that Gotovina should not be burdened with these political charges.

Speaking about it would only open up more dirty stories on Mitterand and the secret cells which are the tradition of each new French political establishment.He disappeared to appear in Tenerife sometime later.

His apparent silence on the involvement of US forces and help in Operation Storm might (so far) explain his diplomatic silence ..as Jackie Prkic reports

1. United States Ambassador to Croatia in 1995, Amb. Peter Galbraith, has publicly declared that the principal allegations against Gotovina are false.

2. ICTY’s primary charge against Gotovina is that he is responsible for the deportation, or “ethnic cleansing,” of approximately 150,000 Croatian Serbs from Croatia. Amb. Galbraith has on the record on numerous occasions stated that this allegation is false, telling Newsweek magazine on August 27, 2001, “The fact is, the population left before the Croatian army got there. . . . You can’t deport people who have already left.”

3. Amb. Galbraith later confirmed this fact to the Sarajevo newspaper “Dani,” stating that, “We have to understand first of all that the Serb population left their homes before the Croatian Army took over, so it is very difficult to defend the view that the Croatian Army drove out the Serbs. This was very different from Prijedor, Visegrad and other places that are synonyms for the Bosnian genocide.”

4. Amb. Galbraith was later called by the ICTY to testify in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. In his sworn testimony to the Tribunal and under cross-examination by Milosevic, Amb. Galbraith testified under oath that the Croatian military under General Gotovina’s leadership did not deport, terrorize or ethnically cleanse the Croatian Serb population, as is alleged in the indictment against Gotovina.

Picture of Serbs feeing from a You tube film worth seeing for the result of the Croat attacks on Serb convoys.

Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day ... the Muslim victory that led to the Serbian aggression. Victors celebrate and victims weep ...

Today is Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day (Croatian: Dan pobjede i domovinske zahvalnosti) in Croatia. It is a public holiday in Croatia which is held as a memorial to what Croatians call their War of Independence.

It is celebrated today as the day Croatian Army forces took the city of Knin in 1995 after only 3 days fighting - it as the principal object of Operation Storm, which obliterated the Republic of Serbian Krajina, a self-proclaimed Serb entity in Croatia. Knin is a town of strategic importance as the railroads from Zadar, Split and Šibenik all pass northwards through Knin, to Zagreb.

The leaders of Krajina were Knin locals: Milan Martić, a former police inspector, and Milan Babić, a dentist.These separatist Serbs held the town until Croatian forces liberated it , both were indicted for crimes.When they were indicted they were described as leaders of the "Serbian Autonomous District /Sprska autonomna oblast/ ("SAO") Krajina," and the so-called "Republic of Serbian Krajina /Republika Srpska krajina/" ("RSK") (Martic trial)

AP Jan 27th 2004 "Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic pleaded guilty on Tuesday to persecution in a plan to ethnically cleanse parts of Croatia of non-Serbs at the outset of the Balkan wars, and expressed "a deep sense of shame" for his crimes.

In exchange for Babic's guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges of war crimes."

"Babic signed a lengthy confession acknowledging that he was aware of the forced eviction and persecution of Croats, that he helped spread pro-Serb propaganda, and that he helped acquire weapons and distribute them to Serb population. More than 78,000 Croats and about 2,000 Muslims lived in Krajina in 1991, but within a year virtually the entire non-Serb population "was forcibly removed, deported or killed," Babic's initial indictment said. "

In the 2001 census, the population of Knin was 11,128 in the city and 15,190 in the municipality, and the majority of its citizens were Croats with 76.45% and Serbs 20.8%.[15]

The University of Zadar Geography department figues show that in 1991 the of 12,331 people in Knin, 85% were Serbs and 10% Croats.

This mass ethnic cleansing of the Serbs was the result of Operation Storm planned and executed by General Gotovina with US aid in terms of money, manpower, equipment on the ground and intelligence in the form of aerial surveilance. He, after many years on the run like Karadic is now standing trial in the Hague. He had been eventually arrested in a luxury hotel on Tenerife with a handful of false passports in December 2005, thus easing Croatia’s path to EU membership.

Testament, like the arrest of Karadic after 3 weeks of the new ASerbian Government that the offer of entry to the EU allows them to winkle out the survivors.

Gotovina is joined by 2 other generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, The three generals are accused of taking part in a joint criminal enterprise together with Franjo Tudjman, former President of Croatia, Gojko Susak, former Minister of Defence, and two former army chiefs of staff all four of whom are dead.

Amongst the charges are "Large-scale deportation or displacement of an estimated 150,000-200,000 Krajina Serbs "

As the trial continues , conflicting evidence arises, especially on the role and actions of the US - Alun Roberts was a UN spokesman and accused Croatian military forces of shelling Knin and crimes committed in the vicinity of that town after the operation, and said that 200 civilian facilities were damaged in the shelling of August 4 and 5, 1995, "which had not been limited to the locations used by the self-proclaimed local military and civilian Serb authorities".

He said that Croatian authorities, specifically General Čermak, had limited the movement of UN members to the center of Knin "in order to conceal the extent of the shelling".

On the 11th July ,Goran Jungvirth , a former United Nations logistics officer told the trial that the shelling of Knin during a 1995 operation to recapture Serb-held areas of Croatia was designed not to hit military targets but to frighten civilians into fleeing.

“It was deliberate, harassing fire,” said another witness Josef Lorenzo Claude Belrose, a Canadian retired colonel. Belrose also described how he saw signs of looting and the burning of houses in nearby villages when he was removing UN observation points. He said UN representatives were unable to enter the villages because Croatian special police stopped them, telling them operations were under way and it was not safe.

To everyone's surprise , Peter Galbraith, the former United States ambassador to Zagreb (and son of economist JK Galbraith), said in testimony at the end of June that Knin was not randomly targeted during the first days of Operation Storm. The damage from shelling was not large-scale and the city was left largely undamaged, Galbraith said, adding that this information came from embassy staff who – unlike UN personnel – were allowed to move around Knin.

President Clinton approved Operation Storm and this was passed on by Colonel Richard C. Herrick, then US military attaché in Zagreb. Several days prior to the commencement of Operation Storm, Herrick visited Markica Rebić in Zagreb. Rebić, Miroslav Tuđman, then director of HIS and Miro Međimurac, then head of SIS, held the most intensive communications with the American military and intelligence agencies.

In 1996, Markica Rebić was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal bythe same Peter Galbraith, then US Ambassador to Croatia who has such differing views to UN observers on the shelling of Knin.

President Clinton in approving the opertaion said , that the operation had to be 'clean and fast' and had to be completed in 5 days.

Jovan Dopudj, a former member of the municipal assembly in the town of Obrovac, testified how the Serb population fled on the first day of the Croatian attack. He said people became frightened after artillery started to hit civilian buildings.

However back home now, Ante Gotovina is a hero and Zbor Udruga (Assembly of Associations), is saving the spot of leader for his release. Their popular singing spokesman Marko Perković Thompson, much criticized for his pro-Nazi lyrics and iconography is currently leading the chorus of pro Croatian hagiography of the 3 imprisoned generals.

Ivo Sanader the Croatian prime Minister says that Operation Storm had been a just and legitimate defensive action by the Croatian armed forces, and that he would never allow anyone to cast a shadow over that operation, even for internal Serbian reasons.

This was in response to the now popular (with the Western allies) Serbian President Boris Tadić who had earlier said on the anniversary of what Serbs call the fall of Knin, that he expected an apology from Croatia for crimes against and the persecution of Serbs from Krajina during Operation Storm.

Ivo Sanader was the leader of the right-wing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), once chaired by the nationalist President, Tudjman (who died Dec 1999). With Sanader, HDZ, which softened its nationalist language and was rehabilitated in some way, also obtained the support of the Serbian minority. And the new Prime Minister was ready to do anything in order to make Croatia, which submitted an application for the EU membership in April 2003, a member of the European Club. And the price was Gotovina.

On the 18th of June, 2004, the EU granted to Croatia the candidate status. And on the 17th of December, the European Council fixed the start of negotiations for the 17th of March, 2005.

On the 16th of March, 2005, the European Council of Foreign Ministers postponed the negotiations sine die. Ante Gotovina was found (it is said the CIA grassed him up) on December 5th.

The Sarajevo Declaration which was was signed on January 31, 2005, with the patronage of the international community— the OSCE, the UNHCR, and the European Commission stipulated that the issue of displaced persons throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia should be resolved by the end of 2006.

Nothing has been done.

Not much to celebrate there then.

This site covers all the US involvement in Operation Storm

You Tube video (one of many) hero worshipping General Gotovina

Monkey Business at Bradford and Bungle continues .... ....

Bradford and Bingley have issued 2 Price Monitoring Extensions today

05 August 2008 A Price Monitoring Extension has been activated in this security. A Price Monitoring Extension is activated when the auction matching process would result in an auction price that is a pre-determined percentage above or below the base price. The auction call period is extended for 5 minutes.

For details of how base prices are set for each market, please refer to the Guide to Trading Service at http://www.londonstockexchange.com/

The LSE Glossary provides this explanation

Price monitoring extension
A time extension to the auction call period. It occurs if the auction match price breaches price tolerance limits. The extension allows further entry and deletion of orders.

Such Extensions were also made on the 25th July and the 28th July.

They indicate that traders have seen unexpected price movements which they require to examine and the ability to rectify trades.

The reason Bradford & Bungle (and any other LSE quoted company so affected) issue these notes is to alert stockholders to unusual activity in share trading. The shares have moved up steadily during the day ending up 2 pence = 3.74%.

Out there, are the demutualised building society's 900,000 investors who picked up their stock as 250-share windfalls that are now worth less than £125 after plunging nearly 90% in the past year.

There are however some heavy hitting shareholders like Marshall Wace LLP , Barclays Capital funds, hedge fund warriors fighting for the carrion when B&B is bought out by Tesco, Bank Santander, who knows ? With a current Market Capitalisation of about £800 Mn B&B would now be a tasty morsel.

Meanwhile the FSA sits and watches as a supposedly regulated market place is rigged and manipulated leaving those small shareholders in Yorkshire out in the cold.

Politishop Pro Ver. 8.00

How political imagery works

Kudos to US cartoonist Mark Fiore. Hat-tip to Slate magazine, Lifted from HACK

Thanksgiving ... Christmas .. it's almost on us, get ready!!

School's back soon, Thanksgiving is nearly on us and Christmas is just round the corner. The key to a good celebratory dinner, for killing indigenous American Indians, birth of Jesus, arrival of the SATS scores ..... and Aldi are selling long lasting non-biodegradeable plastic punnets of 5 gorgeous, plump, fingerlickin' good , Spanish nectarines for 59p each.

So we need a bag of sugar (74p) a bottle of Aldi's best Brandy (£11.85) - lemon grass flavouring and bay leaves to flavour by choice.

1.Wash 15 (ish) nectarines carefully, put in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Skin them or leave it on, it doesn't matter. Halve and stone, set aside.
2. Make syrup with water (300ml)and sugar (225g), slowly stir and bring to boil. (Add lemon grass / bay leaves or maybe a vanilla pod )
3. Poach all the nectarines for a few minutes then remove with a slotted spoon . Remove the bay leaves and lemon grass if used.
4. Place nectarines in 2 Sterilised Kilner jars - hot wash in dishwasher or boil in water or heat in warm stove at 180 degrees.
4. Add Brandy to syrup to make a 50/50 mix, when cooled , pour over nectarines and fill up jars with remaining brandy.
5. Allow to cool, put lids on and leave in cool place - garage is ideal.

Serving suggestion : Take several halves, pour syrup over, place lump of clotted cream or Haagen Daz vanilla ice cream (or both). If they taste good, have some more...then sleep.

See a Waitrose recipe here. The peaches and apricots look good too - recipe here

So that's about £15 quid for a memorable dessert for 8 people that needs no further preparation.

Easy peasy.

Axion Power International, Inc - fascinating possibilities in redesigned lead/acid cell storage technology - Good news due ?

You can generate electricity, you can use it, you can move it but it is very difficult to store it. Clever guy Mr Faraday but that was something he missed - and nobody has really improved things much since Mr Leclanche and his famous cell.

In moving electricity around from where you generate it to where it's wanted involves the use of unstable grids that have grown like topsy. This results in increasingly severe disruptions when variable power supplies ( sun, wind, tide ) fail to mesh with variable and increasing power demands - picky consumers who expect the lectric light to go on when they flick the switch.

Energy storage is , remarkably still in it's infancy.

There are three areas which require immediate and urgent attention ...

A : Current common and widely used energy storage technologies such as lead / acid batteries need to be improved

B; Some existing small format energy storage technologies must be examined to scale up their storgae capacity

C : New large format energy storage technologies need to be explored

Naturally no-one in the field of Government funded development is very interested. All effort is directed to generating electricity, be it photo- voltaics, wind, tidal power, barrages, geo-thermal, or aste rec-cycling.

Lead Acid batteries are used as reserve power in very single automotive vehicle produced. They are also used for power transmission, in say golf carts, milk floats -even we note from tonight's TV news, nifty Police runabouts in Kashgar, chasing separatists from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.

Lead acid batteries are simple to make, dependable, they work, the lead can be recycled almost 95%. Their design has remained virtually unchanged for many decades.

There is however an intersting small OTC company, Axiom Power who have introduced some recent developments which look very promising.

On Thursday July 24th Edward. R. Buiel, Ph.D, the Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, of Axion Power International, Inc (OTC Bulletin Board: AXPW ) gave evidence to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources about new technologies being developed for traditional lead-acid batteries to improve efficiency, sustainability, manufacture and the ease of recycling.

He declared that 120 million lead-acid batteries per year are produced in the US (which has massive internal supplies) employing over 100,000 people. Currently the power quality market presently accounts for US$487 million in annual battery sales and is expected to grow to US$615 million by 2009. The motive power market presently accounts for over US$2.2 billion in annual lead-acid battery sales and is projected to grow to US$2.8 billion by 2009.

Axion also expect the Hybrid electric vehicles are an emerging market which currently accounts for $180 million annual power system sales. They claim this market to grow to $2 billion by 2009 - which if true should mean bonanza time - but just who is making hybrid vehicles in that sort of volume ?. certainly not GM and Ford.

This market includes power conditioning systems and uninterruptible power supplies. Power quality systems isolate sensitive electronics from grid-related power quality problems and provide emergency power for mission critical systems in case of power failure.

Key performance requirements for power quality applications include deep discharge, long useful life and minimal maintenance - features of major concern to mission critical operations in the military, supply of essential services such as water, oil, gas, and information - hard-wired telephone networks, cellular telephone networks, cable television networks, electric utility substations and traffic control systems.

Dr. Buiel joined the company 3 years ago from the Energy Storage Group of Meadwestvaco Corporation (NYSE:MWV), one of the largest producers of activated carbon in the world. In this position Dr. Buiel's team focused on developing activated carbon materials for electrochemical applications including Lithium-ion batteries, organic ultracapacitors, and asymmetric lead-carbon capacitors.

His responsibilities included managing a USCAR-Advanced Battery Consortium (http://www.uscar.org/
) project to develop activated carbon materials for hybrid electric vehicle ("HEV") energy storage systems and managing a joint program with Sandia National Laboratories (http://www.sandia.gov/) to develop lead-carbon capacitors for grid-connected energy storage systems.

Now Axion Power International, Inc has announced an Earnings Conference Call (Q2 2008)Scheduled to start on Thursday , Aug 7, 2008, 10:00 am Eastern Time. When it is possible we can learn more about how successful the company has been in it's production of what they call their "e3 Supercells".

Axion's proprietary PbCTM technology is a "multi-celled asymmetrically supercapacitive lead-acid-carbon hybrid battery."

This means it is based on the standard lead-acid battery, with a series of linked cells cells. It differs in that where the negative electrodes in lead-acid batteries are simple sponge lead plates, Axion negative electrodes are five-layer assemblies that consist of a carbon electrode, a corrosion barrier, a current collector, a second corrosion barrier and a second carbon electrode.

These electrode assemblies are then sandwiched together with conventional separators and positive electrodes to make the battery, which is filled with an acid electrolyte, sealed and connected in series to the other cells.

The benefits ?

Those anxious for the chemical details and analysis of the electrochemical reactions which occur on the negative electrodes where the carbon acts as a capacitor can go here

From this chart we can see that the complex negative electrodes add to the initial capital cost but the increase in useful life cycles and enegy density results in a lower ownership cost per Kilowatt Hr compared with other battery systems currently available and in use.

One essential area for use of such enhanced performance batteries is to capture the intermittent power generated by renewable energy producers - solar, wind , which should result in improved performance, productivity, reliability and reduced costs.

Axion also claim that the PbCTM design is ideal for for renewable energy units due to their long useful lives minimal maintenance of sealed units and low operating costs for remote units.

Axion see their technology with it's rapid charge/discharge capabilities and high power output of as ideal hybrid electric vehicle applications. Thye claim they will be able to offer similar or better power and a longer useful life and be lighter than Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries.

NiMH batteries provide high energy and modest power. Advanced supercapacitors offer higher power but far lower energy. Axion say that their PbCTM technology can fill the gap in the energy/power profile.

Where Now ?

Axion received the prestigous Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation Award for North America in 2006 for their work in the field of lead acid batteries and developing an innovative lead-acid-carbon battery- supercapacitor hybrid that could cause disruptive changes in the market.

Axion wer based in Toronto but in 2007 they purchased the assets of the 70,000-square-foot New Castle Battery Company in Pennnsylvania and signed an agreement to lease the old manufacturing facility and upgraded it with new machinery and equipment.

Along with this arrived US$1.2 Mn fro Governer Rendall's Energy Independence Strategy designed to help save consumers and businesses US$10 billion in energy costs over the next decade.

This is funded a minimal charge on electric power consumption. Similar charges are in place in 15 states and the District of Columbia. The charge is proposed at $0.0005 per kWh of electricity used.

Axion's package included a US$750,000 grant through the Department of Environmental Protection's Small Business and Household Pollution Prevention Program, a US$150,000 grant through the Opportunity Grant Program, US$42,300 in Customized Job Training funds and US$258,000 in Job Creation Tax Credits.

On July 8th The Quercus Trust of Newport Beach, California made their final closing US$10 million equity investment and, along with two previous investments of $4 million each announced in January and April. Quercus bought 4,761,905 additional units for $10 million. Each closing unit will consist of one share of Common Stock and a 5-year warrant to purchase one share of Common Stock at an exercise price of $2.60 per share.

Quercus invest in a range of altrenative energy stocks and some details can be found here eg CHINA SOLAR & CLEAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS, INC. Quote Solar Enertech Corp. (SOEN.OB)

Oil in "Playtex "market scenario ... price lifts and firms on Gulf storms and Israeli table banging

Tropical Storm Edouard has gained speed , moving westward today and is expected to strengthen to a near-hurricane before making landfall somewhere in Texas or southwest Louisiana.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River westward to San Luis Pass in Texas. A hurricane watch was in effect from west of Intracoastal City, La. to Port O'Connor, Texas.

This could pose a threat to the oil area of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Most of the drilling rigs are on its expected route, and the storm may even threaten the refineries along the coast itself. Oil companies have already tried to bulk up precautionary measures on the rigs.

In the summer of 2005, a violent hurricane season, which culminated in August with Katrina, seriously damaged the infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico source of 30% of US oil and 15% of natural gas.

Bloomberg report that Brent crude oil for September settlement climbed as much as US$1.12, or 0.9% to US$125.30 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange, and traded at US$125 at 9:09 a.m. in Singapore.

Threat of action over Iran notches up as Livni rattles sabre on CNN

September delivery of Crude oil rose as much as US $1.21, or 1 % to US$126.31 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded at US$125.93 at 9:15 a.m. in Singapore.

The contract gained 0.8 % on Aug. 1 on speculation the odds of a military strike against nuclear research facilities in Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, were increasing.

Iran didn't respond to (or put more stringly , simply ignored) an Aug. 2 deadline to an offer from the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K. and Germany of economic and diplomatic "incentives "in exchange for the suspension of its uranium-enrichment program.

Extra sanctions are needed, said glamorous, houswife Tzipi Livni, who is also Israel's foreign minister, and future Prime Minister, on Sunday's CNN "Late Edition'' program.

UPDATE : Mercyman53's Weblog - Edouard; Prepare for the Worst and Keep Praying for the Best

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer raises £2 Mn for UNICEF at his Manchester United testimonial

68,868 spectators turned up for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's testimonial and easily raised the £2 Mn promised for UNICEF . See the match report in the Times here

Mr John Thain, highest paid liar on Wall Street

Mr John Thain 52, has a CV to die for. He is for the moment, the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch. For the burdens of this office he has in excess of US$50 million per year in compensation (Highest paid CEO in US 2007 says AP). Previously, At Sacks of Gold he was President, COO and CFO and therefore a firm and resolute friend of Hank Paulson. He was CEO of NYSE. His favourite band is Led Zeppelin.

On January 15, 2008 -- Thain engineered the sale of US $6.6 billion of preferred shares in Merrill Lynch to a bunch of Japanese, Kuwaiti and other investors

"...These transactions make certain that Merrill is well-capitalized." he said.

On March 8, 2008 -- Thain was interviewed by the French Le Figaro newspaper.

"...Today I can say that we will not need additional funds. These problems are behind us. We will not return to the market."

Thain in his time has been a frequent visitor to the Orient , whilst in Tokyo on April 8th 2008 reuters reported him saying..

"We deliberately raised more capital than we lost last year ... we believe that will allow us to not have to go back to the equity market in the foreseeable future."

On July 17, 2008 Mr Thain took a conference call after posting Merrill's second-quarter results...

"Right now we believe that we are in a very comfortable spot in terms of our capital." he also said that he would not do anything "dumb" like sell assets "at any price we could get".

Those Q2 results were not good. Mr Thain reported a loss of $4.7 billion. Eleven days later Mr Thain was reporting a US$5.7 billion write-down and the issuance of $8.5 billion of stock.

On Monday Mr Thain, agreed to sell a pile of mortgage-backed collateralised debt obligations(CDO's) with a notional value of $30.6 billion to a distressed debt investor, Lone Star Funds (LSF) , for the princely sum of $6.7 billion he also lent LSF 75% of the money they needed to buy them .Remember that July 17th conference call when Mr Thain said that he would not do anything "dumb" like sell assets "at any price we could get".

Barry Ritholtz ( chief market strategist for Ritholtz Research) thinks that because of prior write downs and the only recourse in default by the buyer is to return the paper, that the actual sale price is about 6 cents on the dollar.

Now is this US$50Mn a year CEO Mr Thain, is he a liar? Or is he a fool ?

The SEC needs to investigate him, rather than short-sellers.

Merrill Lynch has a market capitalization of US$24 billion and has raised US$30 billion since December just to keep making their payroll and put petrol in the chauffered limos. How long will investors be duped into supporting this disaster? You can be sure that the other suspects Citicorp , Lehman Brothers , Washington Mutual will be announcing even more massive write-downs and capital dilution in the coming weeks.

More Good News by James Quinn - Is the U.S. Banking System Safe?

Click here for topless Maria Sharapova in Sports Illustrated swimwear shots.

What copywriters know that you don't Part :74

As an ex - member of the Royal Society of the Black Arts of Copywriting, Lord Patel is still happy to see that the ancient stereotypes continue to flourish. Happily, BUPA is still stuffed full of experts on creaky knees, speeding hearts, sleepless nights ... all it seems who wear round (what, at school, 60 years ago, we used to call "national health" ) glasses.

Further research may also have shown that these experts all wear white coats, carry stethoscopes and sit at laboratory benches looking down microscopes.

If you do sign up for BUPA and are unwise enough to take a "30,000 mile body check-up" and the expert who tests your creaky knees does not wear glasses.....

Do not hesitate.

Ask for your money back.

Instantly.

Mrs Thatcher and Ken Clarke who worked for vast international smuggling and money laundering operations

The next programme about Balkans cigarette smuggling by renowned journalist Misha Glenny will be on BBC 4 tonight:Sunday 03 August 2008 17:00 when he charts the explosion and growth of international crime in our globalised world. 2/2: He investigates cigarette smuggling, from the Balkans through Italy to Brussels.

It is worth while remembering that when Mrs Margaret "The NHS is safe in our hands" Thatcher was "retired" the first employment she took up to complement her meagre Prime Ministerial pension was with Philip Morris. (PM)

They have operated as PMInternationl (PMI) based in Lausanne , Switzerland from March 28th, 2008. Their website's latest news is the Can$2 BN purchase of Rothmans Inc (who owned the 60% of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. (RBH) which PMI did not own)subsequent to Rothmans' and RBH's finalization of the Can$550 million fines for tobacco smuggling. Canadian Tobacco Companies admit massive smuggling activities - huge fines totalling C$1.15 Bn to pay

Documents relating to the Iron Lady's contract (she was a heavy smoker) surfaced and are available here - Memo from Michael Miles about Margaret Thatcher's consulting arrangement with Philip Morris

This is a memo marked confidential ,dated July 20th 1992 which contains these revealing details ...

Our first contact with Mrs. Thatcher occurred last June when she agreed to be a guest speaker at a biennial conference of all the Company's lawyers. She subsequently came to New York and had dinner with a number of members of senior management. As a result of that discussion, all of us at the dinner concluded that, because of Mrs. Thatcher's extensive expertise and knowledge about geopolitical issues in many countries in which we currently do business or hope to do business, it would be sensible to consider a consulting arrangement with her....

...It is contemplated that Mrs. Thatcher would be available to consult with us for an initial three-year period, and that the fee we would pay for those services would consist on a $250,000 annual payment to her, and a $250,000 annual contribution to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. The Foundation is in the early states of formation and it will focus on providing support to entrepreneurial enterprises in countries formerly controlled by the Soviet Union, in China, and in certain Third World countries...

During the course of these discussions, we have developed an even closer relationship with Mrs. Thatcher. She appeared as a guest speaker at the Philip Morris Worldwide Conference in Floria last March, and she has met on several occasions with some of our senior executives on an ad hoc basis concerning problems we face in the Common Market...Based upon our experience to date, we believe that her consulting services will be quite valuable...

Her colleague Ken Clarke MP, always keen to scoop up the hefty UK sales taxes on tobacco as Chancellor of the Exchequer became Deputy Chairman of British American Tobacco (BAT) for 9 years from 1998 until 2007.

BAT have been dogged with claims of assisting smuggling tobacco, all of which have been denied. He has told the House of Commons health committee that BAT "is a company of integrity. It is an extremely good corporate citizen." Claims that it was organising smuggling, he stated, were "quite unfounded ... We do not, and we would not, and we would stop any of our employees doing it." He later admitted that he did not "have any detailed knowledge of the day-to-day activities" of the Geneva office.

Members of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had unearthed details of a scheme which they revealed in 2001 but related to a period before his arrival. Letters provided details of an elaborate scheme involving the sun kissed Caribbean island of Aruba acting as a staging post for smuggling into Venezuela and Colombia. Healthy profits from this operation were up to 1997 collected by a BAT branch based in Surrey. Subsequently they ended up with a subsidiary based in Geneva - the office about which our Ken did not "have any detailed knowledge of the day-to-day activities". When he arrived at BAT this happy arrangement involved 8 billion BAT cigarettes a year and an annual harvest of some US $200m for the Geneva operation.

For more details of international tobacco smuggling see the Centre for Public Integrity - for example "A 240-page internal report on international cigarette smuggling compiled in 1997 by Italy's tax and customs police, the Guardia di Finanza" ... "At least 50 containers a month, primarily Marlboros (Philip Morris's leading brand) , would be sent to warehouses in Montenegrin ports of Zelenika, Bar, and Katar. The cigarette cases would then be transferred to speed boats and shipped at night across the Adriatic to Italy's Puglia region, about 100 miles away. "

The House of Commons Select Committee on Health 2nd Report which examined the Tobacco Industry examined the international smuggling of cigarettes. Those interested in the activities of BAT and their explanation should start in Hansard here.

"Relating to terminology , Mr Broughton (BAT employee) denied that terms such as 'DNP', 'general trade', or 'transit' were "specifically euphemisms for 'smuggled'. That is not to say that there are not times where DNP would be the same as smuggled in one market".381] Mr Broughton said that to look at individual documents, or to quote small parts of individual documents was to risk taking them out of context.382] Mr Clarke went further: he told the Committee that "any case which depends on taking sentences out of eight million pages ... is absurd".383]

Manchester United - home of the finest football and the truth about 7/7

Manchester United are the finest football team in the world. They run an official forum - anyone interested in the truth about what happened on 7/7 might like to turn to this item7/7: Terrorism Or Inside Job?.

Amazon beefs up rare, out of print book service by buying out ABEbooks

Abebooks (formerly the Advanced Book Exchange), has been around for 12 years as an online marketplace for books focusing on used, rare and out of print titles for sale by independent booksellers - They currently list 110 million titles from 13,500 sellers worldwide and they operate from beautiful Victoria, BC, Canada with 100 of those at its Victoria headquarters they have a European office in Dusseldorf , Germany with 35 staff. (WAPO)

Abebooks also owns 40 percent of Library Thing (a social app for keeping track of your books (modest subscription required) and finding other like-minded book lovers - "Meet the world's largest book club. Find people with eerily (?) similar tastes. " ). Amazon is an investor in a similiar outfit called Shelfari -Free membership.

Abebooks CEO Dr. Hannes Blum sent an email out to its booksellers today telling it's bookseller subscribers that they have been acquired by Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) (terms not disclosed) but would continue to operate as a stand-alone business.

Amazon (he says) is committed to further developing the AbeBooks brand and building upon the success of the past 12 years. This is not the first time AbeBooks has changed hands since being launched in 1996. Hubert Burda Media, a substantial German media company, took a majority shareholding in 2003.

Amazon already has a system for supplying hard-to-find and rare books, which incorporates a similar operation to ABE called Bibliofind a few years ago . Scuttlebut in the "Curiosa" section claims that ABE fees have been increased and sellers have been leaving "in droves".

On the basis of this, Reuters report fevered speculation that in the light of changing (ie rapidly declining personal disposable incomes) eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) would become a merger target.(!)

e Bay Hot tip from Lolla Pallooza ..... children's Boden clothes are selling like this

Jesse Ventura says 9/11 was an inside demolition job on Howard Stern show

Former Vietnam Navy SEAL and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura appears on the Howard Stern show and says for the 2nd time in 2 months that 9/11 was an inside job. Ventura claims that all his Navy demolition team friends agree that the WTC buildings were brought down by controlled demolition and that WTC7 in particular proves their allegations:


For all techno freaks, this is the new Blogger Video upload , used here for the first time - let us know of any problems ... seems to work OK for us.