Apologies

I said the Colts would win the Superbowl. Now if that field goal in the last minute ...... zzzzzz

Steelers ... we wuz robbed.

De Menezes murderers to be set free

The PPC report is finished. It cannot be published until, every last legal case, has been finalised..expect to read it some time around 2012.

But sources(?) say that communications met to the men on the ground were " coincidentally not being recorded"..well that is what the BBC says. Quelle surprise.

Obbo man takes a piss,(just at the right / wrong time) the station CCTV cameras are empty / don't work / bust and now we have no comms recording. being a cop is no joke I tell you mate. All this broken equipment. Lucky for them the guns worked anyway.


Justice.

removing the Critics

The Fathers protesting about access to their children have shown most successfully how incompetent the Police are , especially the Metropolitan Police. The only people un entertained are the Police.

Who will rid Sir Ian of this Monstrous Regiment of Men.

Why the Police will, just let our Friends on Rupe's rag the Sun that they may have possibly overheard someon in a pub , bus queue, fish shop , sauna, that they were (quelle horreue) going to snatch away the child of Cherie Blair (and her off to defend a British couple who bought land and a house from land stolen from Greek Cypriots by the Tirks ... amply aided by the US 6th Fleet in 1974).

Collapse of Stout Party.

Does the Uk press now how to work this one out ..evidently not.

..and another bit of opposition bites the dust.

The Stumbling Skater

In describing the activities of the US illegal invasion of Iraq I wrote in February 2003 ...

The course is charted, arrogant use of the military is all the US ruling class has to maintain its dominance. After Iraq, asymmetric warfare, "terrorism," will be directed at Americans, American institutions, American targets, and American allies. When the rest of the world recognizes how thinly spread the US military is, thinly spread physically, and economically, because it is not a sustainable institution in its current incarnation, rebellions will occur. Indeed they have already started. The response of the weakening US will be to lash out, often with unforeseeable consequences, just as the consequences of this impending invasion are unforeseeable, and unknown.

Sturm and Drang

Military might is a sign of strength, but the US military is not invincible worldwide. America's use of force as both first and last resort is a sign of profound systemic weakness. Its employment today will destabilize the world, and cause ....

The world has moved on, the invasion is over, the US main objectives have been acheived which were ..

1. Re Establishing dollar hegemony by preventing further sale of crude oil in US dollars by Saddam Hussein .. and effectivelt frightening off anyone elese who wanted to.

2. Establishing military bases in Iraq (as well as Qatar) ...and throughout the old energy rich CIS States.

I vary the metaphor now.

When I was aa cold and impoverished student in Edinburgh in the eraly 60's I used (with many others) to spend my Sunday afternoon perched on the square solid, central heating radiators of the Scottish National Gallery .. the only place open in town. My meagre gas fire literally ate coins (probably faster than the Muscovites today with 35 below and gas supplies reduced) so this warm spot was welcome ... only early arrivals got to sit on the radiators ... threatening a lifetime of piles we were told.

A Scottish painter I was therefore introduced to and admired was the portaraitist Sir Henry Raeburn , self taught and hugely industrious..although he couldn't paint hands. His The Rev. Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch is a wonderful piece of draughtmanship, showing the portly prebendary skating on one leg having just propelled himself across the freezing ice (his unpaintable hands scsreted in a hand muff).. you can see this by going to an odd site ... (http://www.redrat.net/thoughts/buddha/skater.jpg)

It brings to mind the meeting of the beautifuly stupid, deluded Anna Karenina when she meets the wanton , careless and heartless Vronsky at the Moscow Zoological Gardens which starts off Trotsky's tragic tale of love and loss.

I think the US State is like the peerles prebendary, silently swiftly floating serenely .. now they have stumbled.. they clutch blindly whirling , hoping catching, seeking aid and assistance.

Castro and Chavez travelled the Muslim world in 2000 and 2001 (Googling Images for Castro and Khataeimi will provide wonderful images) stiffenening the world wide Anti American resolve ... now bearing fruit in the teasing of Uncle Sam by the Iranian democratically lected President, the tweaking of his nose by Chavez, the nuisance stirred by the newly democratic Morales. A pattern develops.

Relentlessly Chavez .providing free or cheap heating oil in Manhattan, Castro Doctors to the 3rd world, punch the points home.

Silently the sidelines fill with "Old Europeans" Schroeder, whose influnce has not waned, Merkel asking asking awkward questions about Gunatanamo Bay. Chirac remains soi disant, raising an eyebrow over the activities of Bolton;s lap dog mehlis on the Levantine Corniche, Now the Dutchmen have no courage for the fight in Afghanistan.

Far called our Navies fade away.. said Kipling. Far called Uncle Sam's ffriends are left far behind.

Rusia and China of course, regarding the antics of the Iranian leader stay silent but will of course protect their own and better interests. Peres will of course stir the pot.. kindly forgetting that it was the Iranians who (led by Israel) first baombed saddam's Osirak reactors and only ended doing it themselves because the Iranians botched the job.

Of course there is some official support from Denmark, Poland but their electrorates are growing uneasy.

Meanwhile Uncle Sam clatters across the ice.

Lashing out , (the newly uprated Predator destroying families in Pakistan), watching democracy rise like a tide, now in Chile, perhaps with surprising success in Mexico soon.

Do not forget that 400 Mn people speak Spanish in the world . The Spanish Government were happy to suply warships and planes to Chavez and to strip out Uncle Sams compassses and electronics. The US lose 2 fold, they lose a foothold in sales and they let other suppliers in.

Slippin' and a slidin' the stumbin' skater slides across the pond.

You can bet he can (and will) rely on Mr Blair ... for how long.

LUKOIL grow reserves, production, refining, sales

OAO LUKOIL announced preliminary 2005 results last week. From this we can extract
The company hydrocarbon reserves increased as a result of exploration and prospecting to 160 million tone of Oil EquivalentTOE. The major oil reserves growth accounted for Russia (Nenets Autonomous District, Western Siberia and Perm Region). The largest growth was in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. The large Nakhodka gas field is now working. Reserves should increase in 2006 by 106 MTOE as the Company has discovered 5 new oil, gas and condensate fields and 6 oil deposits in earlier discovered fields.

Total Oil production of the LUKOIL Group, including equity interest of subsidiaries and foreign projects, grew 4.5% came to 90.1 mln tons, including 86.3 mln tons in the Russian Federation and 3.8 mln tons abroad.

Gas production in 2005 increased by 17% and exceeded 7.6 Billions of Cubic metres BCM. In 2006 LUKOIL plans production increases of gas ofmore than 40%, mailnly from the Nakhodkinskoye field.

Oil exports of the LUKOIL Group in 2005 rose by 2.3% to 46.6 mln tons,…non-CIS countries (40.7 mln tons) and CIS countries (5.9 mln tons).

In 2005 natural, associated and stripped gas sold by the Russian subsidiaries of the LUKOIL Group came to 4.1 BCM, a 17% increase on 2004.Crude processing at the LUKOIL Group refineries (excluding the mini-refineries) in 2005 amounted to 47.4 mln tons, including 37.1 mln tons in Russia and 10.3 mln tons abroad. As compared to 2004, the total refining increased by 8.2%. No increases in refining capacity are expected in 2006.

In 2005 production of EN590 diesel fuel in the Russian refineries owned by the LUKOIL Group reached 4.7 mln tons or 46.5% of the total Russian diesel fuel production, which is almost 6 times the amount of the last year. Production of light petroleum products in the LUKOIL Group refineries rose to 53%, the share of high octane gasoline in the total amount of auto gasoline reached 79%.

Total investment expenditures in 2005 rose 72 % to USD 6.9 Bn
Taxes at all levels levels of the Russian Federation budget amounted to RUR 469.1 Bn or USD 16.6 Bn. A rise of 170% on 2004.

You can now buy GAZPROM shares ...maybe soon .... of Course Chevron have s Director on the Board of LUKOIL.

Duck Shooting seasons stops in Cyprus

The Greek Cyprus Gubment, (thats is the bit left after the Turks with US help invaded the island and stole 70% of the land in 1984( have ended the duck hunting season in response to the reports of vaian flu on the Turkish mainland.

Meanwhile the "Turkish" Government fails to reply to letters from the Greek Cyrpus Government on the issue and takes no notice or action.

In Ethiopia (pop 74 Mn) they take delivery of over 100 T55 tanks (from Bulgaria) to protect their Eritrean border (pop 4.5 Mn). Maybe the duck hunting season has not been stopped on the border areas ?

Belgian from the ICC may be bemerding the Bolton plan

The International Criminal Court at the Hague, which John Bolton the US UN Ambassador hates with a passionate intensity and has spent so much time and personal effort in ensuring his new found allies in Central Europe faily to ratify as a price for US Military aid have provided a blameless boring Belgian lawyer to take over from the manipulative and dishonest german, Detlev Mehlis.

However Mehlis' work is done, the guilty Syrians are in the frame and the "enquiry" can carry on until Doomsday.

The Syrian pot will continue to happily boil away, whilst attention re-focuses on the evil men in Teheran , who it appears have breached no Treaties, done no (legal) wrongs and cut through a few padlocks.

Remember ! The US is the next Chairman of the Un Security Council, JB will be quietly plotting some thing nasty in his woodshed. At least he no longer has to go and see his friends in jail anymore, now that the lady (!) from the NYP has spilled (?) the beans.

"Bibi" makes his move

Bibi Netanyahu has removed his 4 Likud Ministers from the Israeli Gubment and association with Kiduma, who apparently ride high in the opinion polls published so far in Erutz Israel.

In his audacious move by scuttling from Gaza, Sharon received the plaudits of the bone headed Bush, who happily called the old butcher and war criminal , "A Man of Peace" and the reluctant approval of his people. By erecting his Wall of Peace he has cemented the annexation of war won territories which Israel will never yield and will lead to yet further bantu-isation or cantonisation of the West Bank and had provided a recognisable form of security within Erutz Israel which the cowering population welcomes.

The Israelis do not want to share their land with a bunch of Arabs, They want ... more dollars ... the fighting by 3rd parties of their wars, .. against Iran , Syria at other's expense and cost.

The UK, led by Kim Howell's and with his leader so far up the fundament of the US President he cannot see the light, the Uk majestically provides the diplomatic support and the merest veil of sanctity to the actions of the Washington Beltway gangsters.

Meanwhile, failing to realise the futility of military might, the Anti-American voices become wider, more strident and cheeky, Iran, Castro, Morales, Chavez...and even hints in Mexico.

Quietly lest anyone forget , the US no longer has military presence in Uzbekistan.

Palace of Varieties

Back from their hols and playing Cluedo (was it Ming in the Conservatory with the lead pipe or Hughes in the Billiard Room with the Poker?) the Palace of Westminster jesters are hard back at work.

The Liberals impressed with McCabe and the Young Trhuster Clegg dusting up the Zionist Kim Howells over US rendition of the "bad guys" (as we now have learnt to call them) which the wily Welshman played a straight bat to.

Then a day later TB mercilessly hits both Ming and Hughes for six into the Strangers Gallery.

TB then gives us his ideas on parenting (for a start don't let your under age son be found dead drunk unconscious in Leicester Square while mum is off on a free bee and you are hard at work saving civilization.)...

We have no room to lock any body else up, so , as we cannot remove people's Liberty we will take away their money. Kids truanting ..? Instant fines ! Kids making a nuisance .... Instant Fines ? Unruly families ? Loud music? Uninsured \ Unlicensed parked cars ? Fine, Fine, Fine.... and then lock them up for non- payment !

All this seems possible under the Public Order Act of 1986 .. God knoes what the impact of the Terra Wrist legislation could be if only the Police learnt how to use it properly.

Stalin said Communism was the old Soviet with electricity. If we continue the Energy policies of this lot we will just have the old Soviet.

FCUKED

I formed the Forthcoming UK Energy Deficit FCUKED over 4 years ago to highlight the insanity of succeeding UK Gubments incapacity to understand the at the country was hurtling headlong into an energy cul de sac.

(See excellent Vital Trivia links from here for current details)Mrs T's "Dash for Gas" ensured the UK pumped out the North Sea to boost cheap electricity production , unhindered by the revolting miners. Conoco Phillips and others swilled out the N Sea resevoirs heedless of the Kk Strategic interests (qv Norway ' Statoil's more sensible and PRUDENT policy).

Cpompund this with the Labour Gubments wind energy delusions, now shuddering to a halt as the futility of the exercise, the difficulties of offshore wind farms and the high costs and maintenance and the intractible and costly distribution system required and the future looks bleak.

Lard this with the lamentable record of UK Coal, now being circled by the Int. Coal Group ready to rape and rob the shareholders of their saleable above ground land assets, close the remaining few mines and import cheaper imported coal and rising tides of petcoke from overworked global refineries handling increasing volumes of high sulphur oil. (Pet coke is the residue after refining crude oil for high volatile distillates = trials are underway at Drax the overseas owned power station producing near 10% of UK electricity).

You don't have to apply to join FCUKED (Prop. Tony Blair), just live in the UK you get automatic membership. No member benefits.

Who the hell is behind RosUkrEn-ergo ?

The glamorous "Gas Princess" Yulia Tymoshenko, ex premier of Ukraine's website which publishes the details so called 5 year Russian / Ukraine GAZPROM deal it last just 6 months for gas at US$ 95 per 1K cu. mts. GAZPROM will also pay transit fees of US$ 1.6 per 1K cu. mts. until 1.1.2011.

Some sources claim that niet Russian gas will enter Unkraine and that it will all come from other central Asian Gas suppliers.

The whol deal is moderated by RosUkrEn-ergo formed by GAZPROM and the Austrian bank / Broker Raiffeisen who are said to represent certain Ukraine "interests".

There is no truth whatever that these "interests" were involved in broking deals for Iraqi oil through the 'Babylon' Account in Bank of Dubai with an English oil trader the US now wants extradited.

Watch this space.

LUKOIL expanding in Kazakhstan

Russia's no.1 independent crude producer, LUKoil, intends to expand its operations in oil-rich Kazakhstan, the company's president said Wednesday.

Vagit Alekperov, was in the Kazakh capital to attend the inauguration of the wonderful President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He took the opportunity to point out that said LUKoil had pumped US $4 billion into its the Kazakh economy in 2005.

"We are the fourth largest oil producer in Kazakhstan, producing more than 5 million metric tons of oil a year," Alekperov said. "Now we are considering the projects on developing the shelf of the Caspian Sea."

Vagit also mentioned the difficulties over the 2nd stage of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, who want to build an oil pipeline from W Kazakhstan to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on the Black Sea.

Dancin' in Detroit... before it disappears

Pacers are now set to win the Superbowl in Detroit so the chance to dance to the mid time Stones music has it's allure. Let's hope we have no Justin and Miss Jackson 'wardrobe malfunctions'....

Anyway Mick and I go back a long way, on 26th Jan 1964 I stood nect to him in the Uirnals at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester UK ... I remember it weel, the day after a significant birthday... Mick has probably forgotten about it... anyway to appear with the band to dance I am told when I apply, I have to be under 45 yrs old, be avaiable for 7 rehearsals, one of them 7 hours long ... "to maintain the spontanaity of the dancin' " ..says the man on the end of the 'phone.

Chuck on the other side of town at the downbeat Detroit Motor Show announces discounts across 80% of the range of GM cars ...this after employee pricing all summer! They try to hook in the hundreds of overprices SUV hybrids which will sell in their ...er .. hundreds ?

Will the last person downsized in Flint please switch offfthe lights ?

Home thoughts from A Broad

Quelle suprise! Young (2 yr old) Tanwar, one of the carriers of the London bombs, you remeber, the one with the shiny red Mercedes he left behind toi ride in a hire car to Luton ? Well according to the Daily Torygraph on Saturday he left an estate for Probate of 120,000 Pounds Sterling !

Now here is your starter for 10. What profession does a goatee bearded, bling, bling wearing young Asian with a super red Mercedes, who hangs around a gym do to earn (presumably after paying the relevant Income, Capital Gains taxes etc., ) an estate worth 120,000 Pounds Sterling ?

That should give Commander Clarke of the Met a problem to work on. One minute the bombing costs (relatively) peanuts, then one of them is loaded with moolah, enough to equip a small army at the current price of MIL SPEC explosive and Kalashnikovs in the UK.

It does make you wonder how good the hawk eyed men who watch over the terrorised population are doing at watching the money launderers, when a Colombian Drug cartel has been exposed as shipping 100 Mn Sterling a year for probably ten years to Colombia. Apparently the removal of this gang pushed up the street price of heroin, yeah ! Maybe for half an hour, they never noticed it in Manchester (UK) where it is cheaper (and more readily available)than ever.

GM will be posting for Chapter 10 Bankruptcy soon as they see their share price and bond prices slide more, whilst Toyota, Nissan and Honda win the plaudits at the detroit Car Show 2006. Honda Civic Car of the Year 2006, Silverline SUV Truck of the Year 2006.

Meanwhile queues around the block for Beamers and the mightily succesful Mini, DITTO the Toyota Prius. They say that you put you childs name down for Harvard and a Prius at the same time now.

Ford meanwhile are planning to remove the capacity of 1 Mn vehicles from production. Jaguar are losing money, but Aston Martin have announced a new 4 seater Jimmy Bond 4 seater saloon, for which world sales will easily top 250 in 2006.

Is it therefore any wonder the US $ starts lower today against the Yen, and gold is above US$540 ? Expect the US$ at 1.30 to Euro within a month as German exports soar and the world scrambles for French nuclear power expertise (and COGEMA's Uranium)as the politicians finally wake up to the energy wars and the guys who have their hand on the stop cocks.

Now we here that Dick C is hospital with his dicky ticker again. Will the NDL have their friend in as Veep soon ?

Talking of world leaders in hospital the latest news is Arik is breathing without help. What are the odds that Bibi Netanyahu gets the ticket and we see the Zionist agenda roll out in full throttle. The grip on the prison that the world allows, that is Gaza, will get worse, the restrictions on movement in the West Bank even more restrictive and the building for the "refugees from Gaza" will grow apace.

Another Kennedy gets assassinated. This time in the UK. There are many reasons to get rid of him besides being a drunk. OK thye spoke gainst the invasion of Iraq. Period. Full stop. They have not hounded the Gubment on anything, the lies, the dodgy dosiers, Abu Ghraib, ill equipped UK troops, the Sheer theft of money, the fact that oil sales and electricity supplies are lower than pre invasion, the activities of UK mercenaries like Erinys, Aegis... nothing.

No no card carrying Liberal has appeared on any Anti-War platform anywhere, on any march, nor made any spech that is at all Anti War at any time. They act like an observer of a rape, crying "Rape" and then standing watching it happen, without summoning help.

Who follows in this party of political pygmies is of no consequence. Odds are that the Mingons will triumph and we will continue uninterrupted with the geriatric lawylery response of Ming with his carefully contructed sentences, and orotund caveats and impotent threats.

Let us hope that the arrivist Oaten, and the faux rural prebendary Hughes (Rev. Obadiah Slope if they re run the Barset Chronicles at BBC again) do not make it through. Tony must be rubbing his hands as he tells everyone he has NO plans to retire. You bet.

News of the new arrivals in the EU is mized with tales of Polish plumbers in London and roofers in Hanburg "stealing" jobs. Now we here that the laundry from swanky Berlin hotels and eateries is trucked overnight to Northern Poland to be washed in the latest automatic laundries and carefully (and no doubt lovingly folded) by the Polish underpaid hausfrau to be returned pristine and fresh for the German gourmands and lawmakers. Just like World War 2, the Germans exporting all the dirty work to Poland.

Now the legitimate Cyprus Gubment have discovered they can no longer subsidise the bloated , nepotistic Cyprus Airways and the 5 neotiating unions have reluctanlty agreed to 500 job cuts and they are kept afloat with another "loan". Let us hope Mr Hajiannou (whose yacht appeared in Limassol harbour during negotiations)can get the slots for Easy Jet at Larnaca and Pahos and boost the flagging tourist trade which was falling off in October - November.

Meanwhile the Cyprus potatoe Growers are discivering that a market of 500 Mn (well the housewives anyway) don't want 1 Kg potatoes with a field attached, the supermarkets want washed handy sized easily packed year round supplies of their desired varieties and the Dutch wholesale processed potato market want contracts to make chips, wedgies, child friendly shapes, etc., of very specfic sizes and varieties. Notably the UK Potato Marketing |BOard announced after Christmas that sales had fallen "substantially" in 2006 (no figures given , which is ominous!.

In India the rich Delhi residents have been aborting their female foetuses according to Lancet. By a novel statistical treatment they have shown that the second child M-F ratio drops to 0.759 and even lower on the thrid child when previous children born were female. They calculate 10 Mn killed over ten years.

In places with high Asian populations many hospitals will not provide any sex information after ultra sound examination to discourage such selective sex abortion. Anecdotally any radiologist is aware that it happens on a regular basis, especially in the more properous middle classes.

We will not even mention Gorgeous George Galloway appearing on "ITV Big Brother".

Finally Craig Murray has not been hauled off to the Tower et after releasing documents detailing UK acceptance of information obtained by torture. What was their response to their Ambassadors concerns ? Well they tried unsuccesfully to stitich him up with tales of sex and drinken debauchery, when that fained they paid him off. Now they just ignore him and would be frightened for him to appear in court to spell out in detail,the revolting acquiescence in this wretched trade by all GIubment Ministers.

Back in Harness

On the six month anniversary of the London bombings. We are now told via th good offices of the Daily Express that they spent very little money and that Khan gave money to the others which conforms with theory about drug mules.

Somebody spent a lot of money, that is certain.

Items to note

Galileo 1 has launched, is working and apparently going well. This wil cause furrowed brows in the Pentagon. The prospects of an independent EU military force and command without US control is not welcome. Especially of the technology is available to China etc.,

China is reported in Financial Times (London) to be moving more FOREX out of US$ (which they have been doing for some time). This should see slow decline of the US$ against the Euro and to some extent the Yen (at all time high).

Morales is (with his mate Hugo) causing even more furrowed brows in Pentagon and SOUTHCOM - Poor old Bantz Craddock has his hands full with revolting Sth Americans. Bolivia has of course huge gas fields discovered in last 2 years handily placed to ship off West to the Orient where M has been shindigging with the Beijing elites.

International Coal Group mentioned here recently re UK Coal stake are of course the owners of the Kentucky mine in the news. Hundreds of safety violations for which they blame the previous owners. ICG (see all about previous manifestation Int Steel Group) are a heartless set of W St bastards making millions, whilst hapless pols fiddle whilst the natural gas fires burn.

Dubyas washroom maid has put off a trip to Indonesia to keep her eye on developments in the homeland of her supporters in AEI NDL etc., as Sharon s;ides from view. Cannot wait to see her outfit as she gets off Air Force One to meet and greet the Israeli War Cabinet.

Indianapolis Colts are now superbly placed in the play offs = as predicted pre season they will win the Superbowl easily. Peyton Manning is God.

Jack A like the true friend he is to all is set to spill the beans let us hope that Mr Delay ends up well and truly in the ordure.

Bombing missions in Iraq peaked at 150 in November which reflects dubyas remarks at Annapolis and the new stategy to remove ground troops and just bomb the bastards out of existence. Bill Behr on a BBC Worl News program on mobiles says they :just JDAM them down the mobile line: BB is ex CIA and is now a journalist with friends in low places.

We are winning as Gnl Myers said before he left , ofcial count dead was 132 in Erbil and elsewhere yesterday. Let us hop he never thinks we are losing.

Apologies for absence and thanks for messages of support. Apologies also for punctuation , trying to get to grips with this Arabic - US keyboard.

Happy New Year. It is Christmas Day here in Ethiopia.

Something strange has happened

Iraqi prisons / Torture The tip of an iceberg

The Washington Post yesterday carried a report ...

Abuse Cited In 2nd Jail Operated by Iraqi Ministry

"Investigators said they found 625 prisoners at the center but declined to give details about them. Most of the detainees found at the secret prison last month were Sunni Arabs who had been picked up by forces of the Shiite Muslim-dominated Interior Ministry." (The BBC reports the bunker was beneath an interior ministry building)



.. and a little throwaway line finishes the article.

"Authorities have identified more than 1,000 detention centers across Iraq."

That's an awful lot of prisoners in Iraq.

Meanwhile Meanwhile Agence France Press report Major General Muntazar al-Samarrai saying that he witnessed horrific scenes of torture while he worked in Iraqi-run prisons. He showed the news agency videotapes recorded inside the prison. Men were seen with whip marks and acid burns. One prisoner had lost an eye. Another prisoner had nails driven into his body. The general said at least three people died as a result of torture at the prison, The general - who is a Sunni now living in Jordan - said the abuse is being carried out at nine secret prisons run by pro-Iranian Shiite militias who work for the Interior Ministry.

* Report RAND Corporation April 16th 2005 The police official in charge of the special forces of the security adviser at the Interior Ministry, Major General Muntazar Jasim al-Samarrai, survived an assassination attempt when gunmen opened fire on his car as he was on his way to the interior ministry. The attackers conducted their attack both from a car and a nearby house. Al-Samarrai's driver was injured in the attack as was one of his escorts. One attacker was wounded and arrested.

Recent blogs on same topic here

Tony Blair - Welcome to National Socialism

Tony Blair today on seizing cash from people not convicted of any crime...

"You cannot deal with this type of crime by ordinary methods or by ordinary court processes. I genuinely believe that. I have tried it, it doesn't work."

The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.

Adolf Hitler

Goebbels told an audience of the Volksgerichtshof (National Socialist People's Court -VGH) judges in 1942, " ...the judiciary has to recognize its political task. Whether a judgment was just or unjust was unimportant; what mattered was that it fulfilled its purpose". A Minister of Justice is reported to have said to the newly appointed President of the VGH: "In general, the judge of the VGH must become accustomed to seeing primarily the ideas and intentions of the leadership of the state, while the human fate which depends on it is only secondary".

It is a small step from the use of the personal pronoun repeated, to arrive finally believing that the law is framed by the subjective will of the Führer himself. It is an easy step to it's general acceptance.

Remember Bush's State of the Union address to Congress January 2003, televised nationwide just before the illegal invasion of Iraq. Claiming success in the War on Terra , Bush said that "more than 3,000 suspected terrorists" had been arrested worldwide – "and many others have met a different fate." Cue sickly knowing grin, a snicker .. "Let's put it this way. They are no longer a problem."

As my nanny used to say, "Well they must be bad men Teddy. or else the Policemen wouldn't have locked them up".

Recent blogs on same topic here

CIA prisoners Diplomatic Cover - questions to be asked - and hopefully, answered.

Liberty asked the Foreign Secretary in a letter dated 30th November (Press Release)

1. Liberty requested that he ask the US Government whether it has used British territory for the purposes of extraordinary rendition. Has he done this?

2. We asked him to investigate whether British territory has been so used. He appears to respond by saying that “no requests have been made” (to use airports to move CIA suspects).

3. Crucially, we asked him to seek an assurance from the US Government that in the future, neither it not its agents would use Britain for the purposes of extraordinary rendition. Has he done this?

To which the BBC report Jack Straw replying ;

"Careful research has been unable to identify any occasion... when we have received a request for permission by the United States for a rendition through the United Kingdom territory or airspace," Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Our people have checked through all the detail of the Liberty suggestions.

"They have found no records which corroborate either the details of what Liberty say and no papers relating to any policy considerations of what Liberty say."

He said it was the practise of the US government to ask permission of the UK when it has sought such transfers in the past.

Two such requests were approved for flights taking suspects to the US for trial in 1998, under the Clinton administration, he said.

One cannot doubt that the mandarinate have been turning out drawers, scratching through waste paper bins, consulting files, dusty shelves and found nothing. Simply because there was nothing to find.

Of course no requests were made, because the CIA “rendered prisoners” had diplomatic cover afforded by the issue of diplomatic passports as revealed here 3/12 and here 4/12 and here 6/12

Late NewsApparently in Ministry of Defence and Transport answers, "if landing planes do not unload cargo or passengers, no record is kept of their contents or destination". - Perhaps it would be unrealistic to expect that the CIA would have a cargo manifest that would say.."2 prisoners for Cairo - purpose Torture". A list of passengers and passport details would surely be available?

Liberty have been in possession of this information directly for over a week and have neither sought confirmation or denial from the US our UK authorities, nor have any of the UK MSM media organisation.

Naturally one can understand a degree of scepticism about such a claim, in the absence of provable documents or testimony from named or identified individuals – but why is everyone so incurious ?

Of course if anyone HAS asked the question and the relevant authorities have denied it , I wish they would tell us all.

In the absence of any such information – I can only assume that the Bush administration changed procedures from the preceding Clinton Administration taking the advice of such smart ass lawyers like John Yoo.

It is evident to the meanest intellect that the CIA Airline in its many (dis)guises had a laissez passer (except notably never passing through France) to proceed as they wished. The prisoners were , simply an extension of the inviolable Diplomatic Bag.

Of course the Bromma airport incident in Sweden on December 18th 2001, is the most interesting of cases where approval was given because the lady (Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh) who gave the approval for the kidnapping was murdered in public nearly two years later (curiously she died on 11th September 2003 at about the time that details of the incident were surfacing publicly) – by a Kosovan hit man (Mijailo Mijailović he confessed in Jan 2004).

PS The official Swedish enquiry reported eventually …

“The element in the handling of the case which there is reason to examine more closely is the acceptance of the “guarantee” or the diplomatic assurances. According to the Government, the guarantee was a precondition for the decisions to expel the men to their homeland, Egypt. It comprised the exchange of aides-mémoire and what took place during a conversation between State Secretary Gun-Britt Andersson and a representative of Egypt.”

Which should give great encouragement to Hazel Blears as she negotiates her novel “assurances” with the democratic regimes to which we are so anxious to expel people, for whom we can find no reason to prosecute in this country but wish to eject for reasons unstated and unknown, or at least shrouded in a legal secrecy.

The Bromma incident which came hard on the heels of 9/11 exsposed the problem of meeting the needs of such forthright and honest Ministers as Anna Lindh - it was from this that the ruse of diplomatic cover by use of diplomatic passports followed.

Of course this may be all a load of tosh - and they just shovel these people around without any cover, without notifying Jack Straw - I doubt it.

Recent blogs on same topic here

UK Coal where will it come from next ?

W.L Ross & Company, LLC was formed in April 2000 when Wilbur Ross, Jr. and bankruptcy advisory/investment team moved out of Rothschild Inc. to form an independent organization dedicated to managing distressed securities funds. The firm now manages more than $1.6 million of distressed security funds. WL Ross & Company LLC is headquartered in New York and has offices in Tokyo and Seoul.


The fund now has increased its ownership in UK Coal to 400,000 shares, or 3.3 per cent of the UK’s only sizeable coal producer. (and by now maybe even more)

Who is Wilbur Ross? (pic Wilbur and the 3rd Mrs Ros)Well his greatest successes have been in buying up steel companies – the most successful deal of which was announced on On the morning of Monday, October 25, 2004, when the business media was abuzz with news that Ross had struck a deal with Indian mogul Lakshmi Mittal to sell International Steel Group (ISG) for $4.5 billion. Shares of ISG immediately jumped, so that by the end of the day, Ross and other ISG shareholders were $545 million richer than they had been when the stock market closed on Friday.

This was after he claimed not to be an "asset flipper" and was investing for the future of the steel industry. A view he changed in what they call a New York minute.

More here

One commentator remarks ..

What honestly can be said about Wilbur Louis Ross is that he took a troubled business, shook it hard, and emerged laden with fruit. No distractions kept him from extracting maximum value from his assets; no balancing of his financial interests against the sacrifices made by many others. Just knife-blade bargaining and cutting-edge execution.

After declaring a loss of £30Mn in the first six months of the 2005 Financial year the Board of UK Coal (Mkt Cap today £209 Mn) reported …

A decline in sales volumes, partially offset by higher coal prices, led to a fall in turnover from continuing operations to £164.1 million (2004: £222.4
million). Coal sales fell to 4.8 million tonnes (2004: 7.4 million tonnes) as a result of a reduction in production to 4.6 million tonnes (2004: 7.2 million tonnes) reflecting colliery closures in 2004 and a reduction in surface mine output. Overall coal stocks held amounted to 369,000 tonnes (31 December 2004:647,000 tonnes).

In early November Tom Farmer of Kwik Fit fame finally announced he was no longer interested in taking over UK Coal.

UK Coal’s major shareholders , Phoenix, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity will no doubt be having interesting conversations with Mr Ross and his colleagues who are dedicated to “managing distressed securities funds.”

Drax, producers of 8% of UK electricity is due for listing this week by the American bondholders. Which should value the company they invested £1.3 Bn in 2 years ago at £ 2.3 Bn after having rejected several offers for the company.

Drax are of course heavily dependent upon UK Coal performing against the contracts for supply that they have with them. Mr Ross who has a slew of coal interests (His International Coal Group IPO's last week handing him a7 fold increase on his investment to date) might well of course be contemplating completing those contracts with coal inported into the UK and closing down the mines and selling off their above ground property assets.

Mr Blair must have a grim smile on his face when he sees how vital decisions about the UK energy supply are made by financiers in New York rather than politicians in London.

UK Coal shares closed at 141 p on Friday, having risen some 10% since Mr Ross's interest was announced.

Recent blogs on same topic here

Also you can read in Sunday's Scottish Daily Herald how Gordon Brown's proposed increased taxation of North Sea OIl has shafted new developments (the oil industry has a technical term - killing the goose that lays the golden egg).... and how enlightened industry / Government partnerships in Venezuela have done the reverse.