ITV - on the move

Reuters report talk of Roger Parry chairman of regional newspaper publisher Johnston Press (LSE: JPR.L ) The 2nd biggest local newspaper publisher in the UK (inc. Scotsman), and a major force on the internet with local commercial / news sites. He has plans (rumoured) to split Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster in two - and probably has his eyes on Friends Re-United.

Roger Parry, who cannot mount a bid for ITV (LSE: ITV.L - news) until October after informal overtures were slapped with a "put up or shut up" notice by the Takeover Panel in April, will, it is rumoured in Peterborough, update his proposal once the embargo expires. Parry would split the broadcaster into two companies, one housing production and internet and the other, broadcasting channels.

In June, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and private equity group Permira were reported to be looking at a bid.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) Private Equity piracy department , Apax Partners Worldwide LLP and Blackstone Group have also been in the frame along with Greg Dyke, who has been touted as CEO.

Ratings plummet (the dire Love Island !) and revenues plunge and CEO Charles Allen is rumoured to be leaving to spend more time with his fat pay off.

The ever fragrant Mr Lauder of course, waits (?) in the wings (see post yesterday here "Heaven scent offer for ITV?") - the ITV share price jumped this morning 2 1/2 %. Somebody this time means bizniz. Lord Patel first with the news. Fillya boots.

Boycott Israel - Swedish Campaign Poster

This is a Flikr shot by Jacob Brask of a Swedish Socialist co-operative poster - visit the site to read more and move your mouse over pic to reveal further information. There is also a lengthy and very interesting comment section which is worth following. Via Xymphorawhich if you don't read, you should.

More boring EU statistics, dearer energy, cheaper barmaids

Eurostat the official source of EU statistics latest monthly report 104/2006 2/8/06 (PDF Alert) shows that Euro area industrial producer prices rose by 0.2% month on month.

Tucked away from the headlines you will find that the 5.8% annual increase in producer prices is driven by ...

....In June 2006 compared to June 2005,in the Euro area, Prices in the energy sector rose by 15.7% and for the E25 by 17.6% respectively.

An energy report earlier in the month (PDF Alert)reminds us that 80% of EU25 gas supplies originate in three countries, Norway, Algeria and Russia and the their shares have changed from 1994 - 2004 as follows

Russia 32 % - 48%
Algeria 15% - 15%
Norway 20% - 15%

Mean while consumption of natural gas in 2005 in EU-25 rose by 2.9% compared with 2004 to reach 475.0 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe). the greatest growth was Spain (+22.9%), Estonia (+18.2%), Portugal (+13.6%) Reductions in consumption were recorded for (-9.3%),Luxembourg (-4.9%), Sweden (-4.7%), Denmark (-4.3%)

Production of natural gas in the EU in 2005 fell by 5.8% = to 198 million tones of oil equivalent.(UK fall 7.7%)

The good news is that report 103/2006 shows Euro area seasonally-adjusted unemployment has dropped to 7.8% in June 2006, compared to 8.6% in June 2005. The lowest rates were registered in the Netherlands (3.8%)and Denmark (3.9%) and the highest in Poland (16.0%) and Slovakia (15.1%).Which is why your pint will be pulled by a Slovak beauty and your roof repaired by a Pole..... roll on Romania and Bulgaria joining the EU next year.

Blair - a bloody reckoning is in sight

Blood on his hands
Cover story
John Kampfner
Monday 7th August 2006 New Statesman

"Blair, at his rhetorical best in front of friends in California, appears in no mood for self-doubt. "I have many opponents on the subject," he told Rupert Murdoch's elite gathering at Pebble Beach on 30 July. "But I have complete inner confidence in the analysis of the struggle we face." Either he is delusional, or he has no choice but to say what he says. One close aide recalls that when the Prime Minister was preparing a foreign-policy speech in his Sedgefield constituency in 2004, a year after the invasion of Iraq, he considered a mea culpa of sorts, but changed his mind, asking his team: "Do we want headlines of 'Blair: I was wrong' or 'Blair: I was right'?"
......


"At least over Iraq someone resigned. This time, ministers do nothing. Their private complaints have no moral or political value, because they will not stop Blair. Under cabinet rules of collective responsibility, they are endorsing the Israeli assault."

Read it - somebody on the left with a voice articulates the despair of the public - then watch the mad man face the Press on the morrow.

My betting money is on John Reid, the man who said they wouldn't fire a shot in Afghanistan.

Ugandan Peace Talks progressing well ....

The Good News is .....

Peace talks between the Lords Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government continue, a 2 week break has allowed rebels to consult with family members and community leaders. The Ugandan government agreed to allow LRA leader Joseph Kony's mother and other family members to travel to his base in DR Congo to visit. They further allowed an Acholi delegation of religious, cultural and political leaders to make the trip and visit with the LRA high command. The delegation met with Kony and the high command over the weekend.
Yesterday, in a rare press appearance, Kony addressed the media and said he wants a ceasefire in order to finalize a peace deal with the government.

Government has been reluctant to do this, claiming that a ceasefire must be part of a comprehensive peace settlement. However, the government has welcomed Kony's truce offer and is optimistic that talks with the rebel leader can succeed.

The security situation in northern Uganda has improved as a result of the peace talks. During the month of July, there were very few raids and no noted killings. Only three abductees were detained. However, the three were female and were likely taken to become sex slaves for the rebels. Thus, though numbers of attacks are low, the suffering of the region persists.

The Bad News is ......

In March, the White House announced that ending the war in northern Uganda by the end of 2006 was a priority of the Bush Administration. Yet, as historic peace talks to end the war continue, Administration officials have not sent a delegation to monitor negotiations. The Administration has made not yet made any statement in support of the historic talks. The ambivalence of U.S. government officials toward the negotiations could undermine this crucial opportunity

To hold the US leaders accountable, a 2006 Northern Uganda Lobby Day and Symposium, will be held October 9-10 in Washington D.C.

These intention of these 2 days will bring together advocates and activists across the country to unite for northern Uganda.

The symposium on the 9th will bring together leading scholars and advocates on the issue to discuss new policy solutions. Senior UN officials, top diplomats, peace mediators, academics, religious leaders have been invited.

More information is available here at Ugandan Conflict Action Network

Opium crop is good this year

Papaver somniferum the Opium Poppy clusters of which are happily growing in Rochdale Hospital - why bother going to Afghanistan ? Picture taken today.

Lebanese Government Official map of bombings > Aug 1st

Click here for image to enlarge

You can get daily updates here

FASCISM What It Is and How To Fight It
What Next? Vital Question for the German Proletariat, 1932

After fascism is victorious, finance capital directly and immediately gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities, the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the co-operatives. When a state turns fascist, it does not mean only that the forms and methods of government are changed in accordance the patterns set by Mussolini -- the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role -- but it means first of all for the most part that the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism....

Leon Trotsky

Zimbabwean failed asylum seekers to be sent back

Mr Justice Collins (July 6th 2005) urged the government to halt all removals of failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe pending a further High Court hearing.

A Refugee Legal Council representative said there was evidence to suggest asylum seekers faced being abused in Zimbabwe simply because they had claimed asylum in the UK.

Mr Justice Collins said this made it "arguable" (but not dangerous) that it was unsafe to send back failed asylum seekers and therefore the Refugee Legal Council (RLC) should have the chance to put its evidence to the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

At the time the Archbishop of Canterbury said it would be "deeply immoral" to deport failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Mark Oaten said "It is indefensible to continue with deportations in the face of the evidence that individuals are being mistreated following removal from the UK," he said.

Conservative deputy leader Michael Ancram earlier had asked why the government was trying "to send Zimbabwean asylum seekers in fear of their lives, back to the bloodstained hands of Mugabe and his thugs".

Well the mills of God grind slow and the law even slower but now that's all changed now because the government is to resume deporting failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers after the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled they would not automatically face persecution. (This involved a failed asylum seeker's appeal to Charles Clarke,after a Court of Appeal ruled they had "erred in law" and were told to re-consider their decision).

In a long awaited six page ruling today , Mr Justice Hodge said: "Each case must be considered on its own facts." and entered caveats over the cases of known political opponents against return but added , "That will not necessarily be the case where the only matter of interest is a relevant military history or outstanding criminal issues. Each case must be considered on its particular facts."

Immigration minister Liam Byrne said the new ruling provided the basis for a resumption of enforced returns.

Mr Byrne said the government remained "deeply concerned" about the appalling human rights situation in Zimbabwe and recognised there were Zimbabweans who were in genuine fear of persecution, but deportations were also necessary.

"Enforcing the return of those who have no right to remain here is a key part of upholding a robust and fair asylum system."

"It is therefore essential that we resume returns to send a clear signal to those who come here believing they can abuse the system that they will not be allowed to stay unless they have a genuine need for protection," he said.

Meanwhile The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe devalued the currency yesterday by 60 % and made it illegal to hold more than £22 in cash. Bank notes can only be used now by ignoring the three final zeros to counter the 1,200 % inflation rate, the highest in the world - echoes of the Weimar Republic.

Banks had run up against the limitations of their software to handle the transactions of trillions of Zim$'s.

Heaven scent offer for ITV shareholders ?

Central European Media Enterprises (CME) (listed on NASDAQ ; CETV and Prague) controls 10 TV stations from a London base covering a population of 90 Mn with a combined GDP of US$400 Bn.;

Czech Republic - TV Nova , Galaxie Sport
Slovak republic - TV Markiza
Slovenia - Pop TV, Kanal A
Ukraine - Studio 1 + 1
Croatia - Nova TV
Romania - Pro TV, Acasa TV , Pro Cinema

The 12 year old company has been built up by cosmetics heir Arnold Lauder ( he owns 17% of shares by value but 67% voting rights).

CME was/is committed to Ronald Lauder’s ideology that newly-democratized nation states of the former Soviet bloc were hungry to view, and ready to support, independent television broadcasting. Prior to CME’s arrival, the region had state-controlled broadcasting monopolies and therefore state controlled information.



Advertising spend of US$11 per head of the population lags way behind the Western European average of US$72 per head, but is fast catching up.

All the stations show a healthy share (approx 25%) of the top 10 European advertisers - many of them American brands , Colgate, Johnson & Johnson, P & G, Coca Cola, Kraft and with a product aimed at their youthful free spending aspirational market worldwide, Wrigley Chewing Gum. Other leading brands include Danone,Renault, Samsung, Orange and Mobitel. The major markets are Food, Cosmetics, cleaning materials and Telecoms, compared with say the UK with Finance, Cars and Entertainment being the biggest markets. CME say "Mature markets sell cars, we sell soap !"

It is said that the CME London offices on the Aldwych have been busy with executives eyeing spreadsheets and scribbling numbers on the back of envelopes dissecting ITV - who produce their figures soon, and whose CEO is almost out the door and have to face press comment today in the Times and where else saying revenues to Christmas are down 12/14/15/ even 20%.

Yet another bid for ITV in the offing ?

Tony Blair on Road to Damascus - Astonishing speech reported by BBC

BBC Online report an Astonishing Speech made by Tony Blair

Blair warns of 'arc of extremism'

Tony Blair speaking to the World Affairs Council
Tony Blair called for "stronger values" to fight extremism

Blair's speech

Tony Blair has warned that an "arc of extremism" is stretching across the Atlantic and he called for a radical rethink on foreign policy.

Mr Blair told the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles that the US and UK and Canada had to stop supporting Israeli terrorism or they would "be confronted".

His speech was planned some weeks ago but he said the Lebanon crisis had "brought it into sharp relief".

He said there was now a war "of a completely unconventional kind".

The Prime Minister said: "There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Atlantic and touching countries far outside that region in Europe."

He said in Iraq, US had used "special forces operatives" to "cross the border" of terrorism while the UK had supported extremist SAS intervention.

"The purpose of the terrorism in Iraq is absolutely simple - carnage, causing sectarian hatred, leading to civil war," he said.

'Export of instability'

Mr Blair added: "We need to make clear to the US and UK that there is a choice: come in to the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us; or be confronted."

"Their support of terrorism, their deliberate export of instability, their desire to see wrecked the democratic prospect in Iraq, is utterly unjustifiable, dangerous and wrong.

"If they keep raising the stakes, they will find they have miscalculated."

Mr Blair also spoke about the conflict between Israel and Lebanon and said that the "purpose of the provocation" that began it by Israel "was clear".


We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force.

"It was to create chaos, division and bloodshed, to provoke retaliation that would lead to Arab and Muslim opinion being inflamed, not against those who started the aggression but against those who responded to it," he said.

However, he said it was still possible to come out of the crisis "with a better long-term prospect for the cause of moderation in the Middle East succeeding".

He added: "But it would be absurd not to face up to the immediate damage to that cause which has been done."

Mr Blair said all would be done to try to halt the hostilities in the conflict.

"But once that has happened we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us," he said.

'Alliance of moderation'

Mr Blair spoke of how he believed "global extremism" should be tackled.

"To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian, Arab and Western, wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony.

"We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world."

He said this "unconventional" war must be won through these values.

"This war can't be won in a conventional way, it can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternatives," he said.

'Values change'

However, he said this required a dramatic change in strategy.

The prime minsiter told his 2,000-strong audience there was now an "elemental struggle" about values that was set to shape the world's future.

He said it was a part of struggle between what he called reactionary Democracy and moderate mainstream Democracy.

And in Iraq and Afghanistan he said "the banner was not actually regime change it was values change".

"What we have done therefore in intervening in this way, is probably far more momentous than we appreciated at the time," he said

If this seems remarkable please consult the original report here

Mystic Meg speaks

I have refrained from providing a Unified Field Theory of Middle East events and frankly, been a bit sick of the Monday morning quarterbacking. But now the mad generals of the IDF have let slip the Dogs ... here are few ideas after a careful examination of my crystal Balls.

In no particular order but in the near future ..

1. Hezbollah open up their Pandora's box , SAM's, long range missiles, ground to air missiles.

2. IDF having as Billmon puts it, having put it's hand down the mincer pushes it even further.

3. Heavyweight items hit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem

4. Really Heavyweight laser guided bunker busters go slightly off target and destroy massive amounts of Lebanon.

5. Badr brigades make massive moves in Baghdad, Green Zone assualted / maybe moves in Gaza / Egypt

6. Muslim riots in France ignited in empty suburban Paris. Taken up in the Arab world and in the Muslim diaspora.

7. Mysterious "dirty weapon" is "found" in container ship in Panama canal.

8. SOUTHCON on war footing.

9. President takes special measures - which involves at least a round up of the usual suspects. "Collar the lot" as Churchill said of Germans in UK at start of WWII.

Peacock / Saturday

Lebanon - Destruction of a country, by air, sea and land

You simply MUST see this map of the destruction nationwide in Lebanon - this is officially constructed by the Lebanese Government, but is pre-Qana, 24th July. (Click on map to zoom)

... and our President and Prime Minister's hands drip with their blood.

As of 1.00 am local time Lebanon this map is meaningless as the IDF have launched a massive aerial and land strike,

Agonist lists these sites for more information ...

* http://www.lebanonupdates.blogspot.com/
* http://www.beirutlive.blogspot.com/
* http://frombeirutwithlove.blogspot.com/

The pic is from a sequence on Der Spiegel Online here I call this Nabka II

Tony Blair - He won't be back

There is something gloriously obscene in our Dear Leader hanging out playing at tree hugging with the Governator.

It was of course the Governator who convinced GM that they should get a licence from AM to build a consumer version of the military Hummer - a sort of mobile Tomb much in use in Iraq - this led to the original H1 behemoth , to be followed by the chic pocket sized H2 based on the Chevvy Tahoe chassis weighing in at 3 tons, kerbside.(not including 40 gallons (US) of gas)

These days, the Governator whose campaign to replace the bouffant haired brainless Gray Davis (who he Ed?) was masterminded by George Schwartz,(at whose modest condo the Dear Leader is resting his sun tanned forehead at present) finds it difficult to chose which of his 8 Hummers to use.

GM, in serious financial trouble, even built a hydrogen powered Hummer for him built for squillions of US$ as a "cencept", showed him off to the press ( the 50 mile limit between re-fuelling stops not being enough to get him home), he returned home in a standard heavy polluting gas-guzzler. Not forgetting no doubt to wreath himself in his own cloud of stinking pollution whilst he chomped his reeking ceegars.

Our favourite story of Hummer excess, which beats the Governator, is of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball King LeBron James. Back when James was regarded as the nation's top high school basketball player, he found himself under investigation by Ohio athletic officials who questioned his amateur status when he started driving around in a new bright canary yellow H2 equipped with three televisions. He later was cleared after his mother produced documents showing she bought the vehicle -- which had a base retail price of $50,000 -- for her son's 18th birthday.

Let's get serious now

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently plan to lay the groundwork for a new trans-Atlantic market in carbon dioxide emissions, The Associated Press has learned - Not content with imposing enormous financial burdens on European consumers of the insane EU ETS scheme for outdoor relief for bankers, lawyers, consultants and other City fraudsters our Dear Leader wants to export this nonsensical scheme to sunny CA.

One has to applaud James L. Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council for Environmental Quality and Bush's chief environmental adviser (also lawyer,avid vocal harmony singer, sailor, scuba diver, and beachcomber) for his high profile absence from the press hoopla that Blair and the Governator produced when they went to the port of Long Beach. Quite sensibly he presumably will have nothing to do with this massive financial fraud.

Where beyond the photo-call everyone was supposed to see, the way behind schedule BP, "cold ironing " project which saves pollution from discharging oil tankers by transferring the high energy load from ship board diesel power to onshore electrical power when discharging.

The scheme simply diverts pollution from the coastal cities to the massive coal fired polluting plants in the interior of CA, like the San Joaquin Valley, home to some of the nation's most polluted air which also claims the nation's highest asthma rates in children. ... or even further inland where the state buys electricity producing what they call the California Coal Shadow.(PDF alert)

So Blair might reasonably tackle the Governator about the new report detailing California's existing out-of-state coal plants which release a staggering 67 million tons of global-warming carbon dioxide and discharge ten times more smog-forming pollution and 200 times more mercury than all of the power plants in California.

Add to that the 14,000 megawatts of new coal-fired power plants which are under construction and development in the Interior West, designed for the California coastal market and with no measures for addressing their vast quantities of global warming pollution.

What might cheer the Dear Leader up, is that the US Energy system is as fucked up as the UK one - except that the UK is heading at terminal speed into an 89% reliance on imported energy - without the industrial base to sustain such an increase in imports.

Why should the Dear Leader worry - unlike the Governator - He won't be back.

PS They say what attracted the President to James L. Connaughton was a paper he co-authored in a 1993 law journal , Champion Magazine, a publication of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers entitled "Defending Charges of Environmental Crime -- The Growth Industry of the '90s."

Don't forget it was economist Phil Cooney Chief of Staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality who allegedly had deleted/ amended whole sections of official scientific reports on climate change. Since leaving he was hired by ExxonMobil June 2005,

Mazen Kerbaj duets with the Bombers over Beirut

Mazen Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut and has lived there since. His main activities are comics, painting and music. You can read more about him, download music etc., at his website here.

You can also download an mp3 of him duetting with Israeli jets bombing Beirut at his website and also these other sites - if you do, please send me your opinion.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/web/mp3specials.php
http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/audio/mazen.html
http://www.dasmollschegesetz.de/beirut.htm
http://www.muniak.com/mazenkerbaj.html
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/mazen_kerbaj-starry_night.mp3
http://www.nonstuff.com/mazen_kerbaj-starry_night.mp3

Meanwhile the pompous, property owner (9 houses at the last count) Michael Meacher , once a member of the UK Labour Cabinet, and my MP, 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has a large Muslim (30%) audience in his Oldham constituency has, on BBC Radio4 1.00 pm (BST) News today laid into the cowardly cabinet and especially Margaret Beckett for supporting the Axis of Evil of Israel / Bush / Blair.

It also appears that the US are continuing to supply their Weapons of Mass Destruction to Israel via RAF Mildenhall, which despite it's deceptive title, is actually a sovereign piece of America which the UK cannot enter, due to a hasty agreement bwetween Attlee's Labour Government and our war-time ally.

So, when you see these weapons , dealing with Beirut, like Petrarch tells us the Romans did with Carthage..."that which they did not destroy, they laid waste " ... your chest can swell with pride that your Prime Minister had a hand in the bloody massacre. Let's hope he has a wonderful holiday on Bermuda at Christian Cliff's place - incidentally an island where the USAF bases were removed by agreement on June 18th 2002.

So he's not going to have his holiday spoilt by a crashing Galaxy freighter or it's lethal contents.

Lord Levy's assistant at Foreign Office fails to shine

The single unladylike expletive used by la Beckett on being offered the job to sit in the next office to the midget karaoke King, the Lord Levy, Tony Blair's "personal envoy" in the Foreign Office, sounded round the world, somewhat like the shot at Concorde.

Since then la Beckett has been virtually silent - or to those fortunate enough to catch her interviewed on Radio and TV , unintelligible.

The Guradian today perform a neat and nasty hatchet job on the erstwhile traveller - whose flying exploits hitherto have been met with query and scorn. Alas, she appears grounded and gormless having left behind her the stinking mess of the EU Emissions Trading System which is rapidly falling apart.

It is evident that she has, however left the interesting developments in the Middle East to the clever little chap in the next office, who probably can read maps and also knows the language they speak over there. Anyway Condi and her friends in the Holy Land says she's doing a terrific job. They say she and Leo must pop over for a nice holiday when all this trouble has qietened down - Eilat in the winter is really nice. although trips to Petra are on hold just at present apparently.

Questions asked about the performance of Beckett

· Foreign secretary too inexperienced, say critics
· Knowledge of Middle East affairs causes concern

Ewen MacAskill and Will Woodward
The Guardian Tuesday August 1, 2006

"The grumblings within the Foreign Office are getting louder. Officials complain the Israel-Lebanon war has brutally exposed the inexperience and inadequacies of Margaret Beckett as foreign secretary. ...."

Now read more
A relief to know that John Prescott will be in charge whilst Tony is off with the boys, enjoying himself at Cliff's beach shack after meeting all those interesting people at George Schultz's modest place in sunny San Francisco.

GAZ takes 100% of LDV - last UK motor business to be sold off

Lord Patel told you that Russian auto manufacturer GAZ Group were to buy the last motor manufacturing business in the UK, the van maker LDV 4 weeks ago from Sun Capital.

US bankers sell off last of UK vehicle manufacturing to Russians

GAZ Group was established in 2005, after RusPromAvto restructured its production assets and now owns 100% of LDV.

Based in the central Russian city of Niznhy Novgorod, GAZ supplies vehicles to 29 countries in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. GAZ produces about 200,000 vehicles a year.

Will the last person leaving Solihull please switch the light off.

Slaughter of the Inoccents - OK say Yesha Rabbis

Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy."

All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said. (Efrat Weiss)

(07.30.06, 17:37)Ynet news the Online edition of Yediot Aharonot. Israel's largest selling tabloid. What in the UK we call Red Tops - presumably they will be printing with Palestinian blood any day now.

Compare this with a report in Harratez in 2003

It was the same Yesha rabbinical council that issued an announcement in 2003 to say that the Palestinians' olive harvest and olive trees must not be damaged, Army Radio reported. The announcement came after reports that settlers had sawed up hundreds of olive trees in the West Bank. Such destroying of the crop is acceptable in a special case of war, and that can only be decreed by the government, the rabbinical council for the West Bank and Gaza Strip announced. (they also yield a valuable crop no doub t Lord Patel)

The council also condemned all vigilante hostility, and said the olive crop-destroyers were bringing a bad name to the settlers and the settlement movement as a whole, according to the radio.

Gilad Shalit - missing for a month - where is he ?

Daily Press Briefing / US State Department / Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman / July 27, 2006

A curious exchange occurred last week at the start of the Daily Press Briefing at State.

Question (From Sylvie (?) .... I mean, if the U.S. has any independent information about reports that there may be an imminent solution on the soldier (inaudible)

MR. CASEY: Other than the press reports, I don't have any information that I can offer you right now. Obviously, it has been one of our longstanding goals in this situation to see the release of the captive Israeli soldiers, both those held by Hamas and those held by Hezbollah. President Abbas has been one of the people that we have been talking to to try and help move that process forward. Certainly, we would love to see that happen. We believe it would be an important step forward in dealing with some of the issues that prompted the current military actions in Gaza and the West Bank. And so we certainly hope it's true, but I don't have any independent confirmation for you.

So Israel unleashes themselves on Gaza and up to press kills 100 civilians, levels houses,terrorises villages and smashes up a power station, bridges, roads, docks, uses Gaza as a free fire artilery range, maintains supersonic carpet booming day and night because, ostensibly one of their soldiers have been kidnapped.... and the US State Department relies on Press reports ?

The Jerusalem Post reports that head of Shin Bet,Yuval Diskin reported to the Israeli Cabinet that efforts to rescue kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit were not succeeding but reported that "it is extremely likely that Shalit is alive and well in the Gaza Strip."

Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, said yesterday that he wasn't aware of attempts to secure his son's release other than those of Egypt. Noam Shalit said that the family had not received any new information from the Israeli government regarding their son's condition. So we are expected to believe that the Israeli Government are relying on Egyptians to find one of their sons - meanwhile keeping their parents un-informed ?

Haaretz in reporting what Abbas said in Rome (apparently after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Abbas in a recent phone conversation that an end to the crisis over Shalit may be imminent) about " a resolution appears to be imminent" quoted Abbas's former adviser, Jibril Rajoub, who said on Wednesday that a solution to the crisis would be found "next week". Members of Hamas's military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, denied this, a spokesman for the group, Abu Obeida,who has appeared since the kidnapping as a spokesman, reiterated that "the case of the Israeli soldier is closed."

Uruknet today re-publish an article from What really Happened
Israel Fakes a Provocation - (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Gilad Shalit)

Interestingly the father of one of the soldiers seized by Hezbollah, Ehud Goldwasser, turned up at a highly secretive Zionist rally under conditions of massive Police security in Manchester this Sunday.

Gilad Shalit - missing for a month - Lord Patel repeats, where is he ?

Arabian Nights - A n new old story .

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman (68, ex Fidelity Investments, ex Treasury and at Energy since 31/1/2005, grandfather 8 times over) was in Iraq last week to chew the fat with Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahristani (see pic). Together they met representatives from oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon, BP and Shell Oil which the sharp eyed readers will have nticed are all headquartered in the USA.(For nit pickers , since "taking over" Amoco, rendering accounts in US$, BP is effectively a US company see BTC pipeline)

The intention was to discuss possible joint ventures and a new hydrocarbon law that would regulate the critical energy sector throughout the country. A few notes about the present situtation are worthy of note.

1. More than 250 Oil Ministry officials, workers and security guards have been assassinated since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, according to the Oil ministry.

2. There have been over 300 attacks on Iraqi oil fields in the last three years, according to Iraqi government figures.See website Iraqi Pipeline Watch fro details ov every strike, costs, deaths etc.,

3. June 8 2006 (The day al-Zarkawi (?) was killed. Gunmen in Baghdad kidnapped the director general of the State Company for Oil Projects, Muthana al-Badri in Aazamiya, northern Baghdad.he had worked for the company all his life and took over at the fall of Saddam Hussein.

4. Gunmen in vehicles resembling those used by Iraqi security forces kidnapped the president of one of Iraq’s state-owned oil companies in Baghdad on Sunday 16th July 2006 in the afternoon, an Oil Ministry spokesman said. Adil Mohamed al-Qazaz, the president of the Northern Oil Company, was abducted at about 3:30 p.m. local time after gunmen in two vehicles forced his car to stop and assaulted his bodyguards, said Aseem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman. Mr. Qazaz had just left a meeting at the ministry.

5. This was before the car bomb that detonated today (30/7) in Kirkuk in the previously untouched Arafa Naftiya area, a predominantly Christian neighborhood containing the headquarters of the Northern Oil Company and foreign consulates which killed two and wounded 6

After their meeting, Al-Shahristani said that oil company representatives offered their advice and assistance for plans on a hydrocarbon law that will be introduced to the Iraqi Parliament for voting at the end of this year. Al-Shahristani , educated inToronto, a nuclear scientist, Shia, married to Canadian Bernice Holton, improsned in Abu GHraib by Saddam and escaped at the time of the Gulf War - In an interview broadcast on the CBS program 60 Minutes in February, 2003, he claimed over 100 Km of tunnels with stockpiles of were hidden in an unfinished subway snaking below Baghdad, although he had never seen it. ...but then neither has anybody else. He is also said to have turned down the job of PM.

Bodman has been touting this law (his reason for being there) as a way for Iraq to attract US$20 BN. (Any big number you can think of will do here Ed.) in foreign investment that is needed to increase Iraqi oil production. This magic piece of Western inspired legislation engineered by the finest lawyers the major oilcos can assemble, is claimed will impact the worlds oil market by improving confidence (?) in Iraqs energy sector. Al-Shahristani told reporters that although Iraq has not negotiated joint ventures with companies to begin work in specific oil fields, he said that some contracts could be signed before the hydrocarbon law is voted on by Parliament.

Which may appear a novel way of introducing legislation to give away control over the country's resources - but no doubt one the oilcos are used to.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has said that the Iraqi Oil Ministry makes its decisions independent of the United States, (Ho! Ho! Ho!) apart from helping Iraq draft the hydrocarbon law. The DOE said it simply provides technical experts and will be pursuing joint projects with the Iraqi energy ministry. (Leaving it to Mr Alekperov and LUKoil to actually train Iraqis in Russia to learn for themselves which they have been doing for over 2 years).

Iraq, is said to be currently producing 1.9 million barrels of oil per day (viz pre-war oil production level of 2.6 MBRD) hopes to boost production to 3 MBPD by the end of the year, said Al-Shahristani.(He was not evidently hallucinating when he said this, but then he didn't specify which year he was referring to, but it certainly began with a 2)

The oil minister ambitiously projected that Iraq could produce up to 4.5 million barrels per day in the next five years and that it could be the second largest producer of oil in fifteen years.

Bodman added (sensibly it looks from here) a note of caution and described such projected figures as "ambitious." (A variant spelling for Bullshit)The US DOE has estimated that at its current output, Iraq is still far under its pre-war oil production level of 2.6 million barrels per day. (Although any figures are wrong because ofunknown levels of theft, corruption etc.,)

To put this meeting in perspective it is useful to remember previous views on oil production in Iraq.

1. The Department of Energy (DoE), stated with cocksure confidence in late 2002 that, given the investment (presumably by US oil co’s), Iraq could quickly double its production from the then-daily level of 2.5 million barrels to 5 million barrels or more.

2. Oil would not only flow, so would the money – enough to pay for the trouble of getting there to steal it. "We can afford it," White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey said of the planned US invasion, because rising Iraqi oil output would invigorate the US economy.

He told the Wall Street Journal in September 2002 "When there is regime change in Iraq, you could add 3 to 5 million barrels [per day] of production to world supply."

3. "Successful prosecution of the war would be good for the (Iraqi) economy," said the then deputy secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz to a congressional panel, "Iraq oil revenues could bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. We're dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

(This guy is now in charge of the World Bank !)

No doubt the "representatives from oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon, BP and Shell Oil." listened, took notes on crisp yellow legal pads with their sleek fountain pens, tapped at their Blackberries, sipped the mint tea that Al-Shahristani favours, exchanged pleasantries and bored glances and hurried off.

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is no doubt a decent chap, a loving husband and grandfather - whether he believes all this crap is another matter.

We should however take notice of someone whose feet (and ears) are a bit closer to the ground....

Asharq Al-Awsat reports - Iraqi Member of Parliament Hadi Al-'Amiri, warning of a possible military coup against the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.

Al-'Amiri, who heads the Badr Organization, the military wing of the High Council of the Islamic Revolution said during a speech in the city of Najaf, "There are some who talk about toppling Al-Maliki's government and replacing it with a national rescue government, which we call a military coup government."

Al-'Amiri adds that this would mean, "the invalidation of the constitution and the results of the elections, as well as returning to the starting point."

Baghdad and the Sunnis/ Shias are dividing roughly along the Tigris. More troops are being dafted in from the North (said to be 3,00 who were on the way back home to the US) but if the Badr brigades hit the Green zone - which is a nasty water bound cul-de-sac - and swarm it... le disparu Saigon will look like a tea party.

Especially if simultaneously, some Iranian supplied Fajr missiles get their range from Lebanon and hit Tel Aviv and a lot of it's occupants. That is probably when we find out what was in those monster transports transiting Prestwick and Mildenhall this week - and it's unlikely to be humanitarian aid or medical supplies.

Those interested in this fascinating topic may wish to refer back to a posting before Lord Patel was ennobled Why Saddam Smiles October 20th 2005