Airbus A380 cockpit 3D 360 degrees panoramic dynamic view

Click here and pretend you are at the Singapore Airshow and having a 360 degree panoramic view of an Airbus 380 cockpit. Also interior shots, first class cabins, steerage etc here Courtesy and Copright Gilles Vidal for Airbus. Even if not interested in airplanes this is a fascinating bit of 3D visual imagery - very slick and fast.

CNN report (to the delight of Boeing staff here) that Singapore Airlines A380 London flight was withdrawn due to a fuel pump problem - the first operational glitch - a 747-400 replaced the service.

Airbus SAS announced that it has received orders for 310 of its long-range A350 jets which will compete directly with the 787 Dreamliner but will not share their composite monocoque fuselage construction.

How Tony Blair's impatience and a bunch of hopeless amateurs fucked up the installation of IT in the NHS ... for ever.

The NHS IT business stratergery ... Plan A

A Freedom of Information Act request by the indefatigable Tony Collins of Computer Weekly has resulted in the publishing of detailed papers from an NHS IT meeting at Downing Street, on 18 February 2002, was attended by several Cabinet ministers, the Cabinet Secretary, representatives of IT suppliers including Microsoft UK, No. 10 policy advisers and health experts. (see below) (Pic above of confidential internal Cisco plan A - we will do all this and we will do it all in one go - why wait ?,.Cisco make routers and switches )BTW there is no Plan B.

The Department of Health promised systems would provide "seamless" care across the NHS by 2004/05 - less than half of the time now allotted to the scheme. (see below)

Now, it is clear, that Tony Blair regarded even the 2004/05 timescale as too long. Ignorant of what was involved, he asked/demanded repeatedly for it to be shortened. He wanted to be able to boast of visible benefits of NHS modernisation in time for a general election in May 2005.

To no avail , as it is now evident that all the plans discussed (but the meeting was not recorded or minuted - but who wanted to tell the Emporer there was no new suit - or that they couldn't deliver) were unrealistic and hopelessly optimistic delivery and implementation of new national systems will stagger on until at least 2013 - 8 years (Ho.Ho.Ho.) later than the timetable presented to Downing Street.

Cabinet Office solicitors have spent 3 years stonewalling Tony's FOI request because “disclosure of the information may disrupt the proper consideration of NHS IT projects in coming years” and “information as to the format of the meeting demonstrates the way in which the policy relating to NHS IT was developed and approached".

What they reveal (having been released on February 11th the day the Information Tribunal was due to meet to consider a ruling on whether they should be disclosed) is the wholly informal and casual fashion a masive and hugely costly (and at that stage uncosted) IT-based modernisation of the NHS was discussed. No minutes were taken , simply a letter from one official to another which reported some of what was said – there was no independent appraisal of the scheme.

The Department of Health’s briefing paper to Blair gave undertakings about making use in the IT programme of the NHS Modernisation Agency and the NHS University – both of which have since been dissolved.

Who was at the meeting ? - Lord Patel names the Gilty Men (and woman) who casually arranged to piss many, many millions of the taxpayers money up against the wall. For a project it increasingly appears will never, ever see the light of day.

Some of those present at the NPfIT meeting at Downing Street, February 2002:

The gullible elected politicians

The Prime Minister Tony Blair / retired - moved on
Secretary of State for Health, Alan "wifebeater" Milburn / sacked 2003 back bencher ever since to "spend more time with his family".
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Smith / in office till May 2002 moved to Pensions then in 2004 resigned and like Milburn wanted to send more time with his family)Solid Blairite and ex ST Johns Oxford)

The ennobled and gullible

Cabinet Office Minister, Lord 'Gus' Macdonald / appointed especially to take over responsibility for overseeing how the Government delivers online services, how it awards public sector IT contracts and how new technologies are used within the civil service.Replaced Feb 2003 not been in Government since.
Health Minister, Lord Hunt / now @ Ministry of Justice

The Obedient Servants (mainly Civil)

Ed Richards, Media Policy adviser to No 10, former head of strategy at the BBC, who drew up a key political strategy for Labour’s general election campaign )CEO OFCOM salary £306 K.- It was as a media adviser to No 10 that he helped draft the Communications Act that brought Ofcom into being.
Sir Richard Wilson Cabinet Secretary / still there
Nigel Crisp NHS Chief Executive / Now Baron Crisp KCB sacked - resigned March 2006
Prof Sir John Pattison Department of Health lead director for the NHS IT programme,
Ian Walker, HM Treasury, led the civil service team which supported Sir Derek Wanless (now ex Northern Wreck Director) in his review of the long-term funding of the NHS

The self important leeches in the private office

Prime Minister’s policy adviser on health matters, Paul Corrigan /left May 2005 - author of "Shakespeare on Management"
Cabinet Office E-envoy reporting to the PM, Andrew Pinder / still in same job
Chief Executive of the Office of Government Commerce, Peter Gershon (HM Treasury announced on 22 July 1999 that the Office of Government Commerce would become the Government's centre of excellence in procurement on 3 April 2000. )

The Americans who were about to clean up on the hi-tech wizardry

Microsoft UK CEO Neil Holloway / Now Vice President Business Strategy for Microsoft International
Public Sector Healthcare, Cisco , Kevin Dean

Some people who had probably wandered in by mistake

Wendy Thomson, Chief Adviser on public service reform / Canadian left May 2005 now at McGill University)
Michael Barber, head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit / Left June 2005 now Sir M Barber Sept 1st 2005 joined McKinsey
Dominic Hardy, Prime Minister’s Policy Unit

SP apart from the Cabinet Secretary and the elusive Dominic Hardy everyone else has moved on... oh! Pinde is still there , fuck knows what e-Envoys do, not a lot it appears,except piss money away ... and this was how you as a patient would find this NHS dream scheme ....

Ho.Ho.Ho.

Yvette Copper lies, King prepared his defence and the exact nature of the assets we now own (especially Granite) are amazingly no clearer

It is impossible to fully grasp the complexities of the legislation for the rushed nationalisation of Northern Wreck (although who would argue with AK see earpiece here) but Famous for 15 Megapixels points us all to the remarks made by the fragrant, elfinesque, and frightfully beautiful Yvette Cooper who regularly exchanges bodily fluids with her well endowed Balls who no doubt populates the intimiacies of the longeurs of post coital triste with wise and witty enecdotes about life in Gordon's Treasury. ... and little good it has done her pretty little head.

Therefore it is worth noting what Hansard records the ignorant haughty bitch saying yesterday....

"Banks stopped lending to each other in the normal way and Northern Rock, owing to its business model, could not get the money that it needed to keep going. The action that we took last autumn was widely supported at the time. The Government stepped in and effectively saved Northern Rock."

Up to a point Lord (Cooper)Copper... the way the shares dropped £1 on the day the NR interims were produced July 26th when the Directors had voted a 33% rise in the divvy, on the back of profits rising less than 1% on nett lending up by 47.3% a suggests that prudent bankers may well have had other and very specific reasons for not lending to Northern Wreck other than "Banks stopp(ing)ed lending to each other in the normal way" - inter bank lending was continuing but at punitive (and temporarily excessively high LIBOR rates).

Northern Wreck had in fact telegraphed their problems well before September 9th when the BOE intervened and had approached Lord King as early as August 11th/12th (BBC Radio 4 Today repeat of File on 4 Interview interview) for the odd £30Bn.well before LIBOR rates had taken off. (BBC4 Today Interview 6th November which you can hear here) which you will find is curiously truncated from the transcript here to make the timetable of events less clear.

SANTS (CEO of FSA) : " ....we immediately identified that there was a potential possible risk here to Northern Rock, and proactively engaged with them as part of our group of firms that we were moving to a crisis management mode."

PESTON: So did you contact them, as it were?

SANTS: We contacted them.
...

KING (BOE) ...bit by bit the funding, the wholesale funding to Northern Rock started to ebb away. [Note it did not STOP]

PESTON: So how much did you estimate at that stage Northern Rock was likely to have to find let’s say by the end of the year, as it were, in terms of the borrowings that they’d made from the money markets that were simply not being replaced?

KING: Well, we thought that it was of the order of about £30 billion was the amount that they would have to find. It became clear quite quickly that the bulk of that funding – say £20 billion to £25 billion or £30 billion would have to come from the Bank of England. So it became clear that Northern Rock required a very very large sum of money.
.....

KING: On the weekend ( 25/26 Aug) before we granted the facility to Northern Rock, I was asked whether, if a certain retail high street bank were to make an offer or a bid for Northern Rock, whether we would be prepared to lend that bank £30 billion at bank rate for about two years. And I think what that did was to demonstrate that our original view, that it was not possible to save Northern Rock without a large injection of money on that scale was clearly right ......

On the other point that Vince Cable raises about Granite - this was addressed by ex Treasury Minister Ken Clarke just as the clock chimed midnight last night and ended discussion in the quaint way these things are done in the Palace of Varieties Westminster. On the Division the Ayes =293 and the Noes and Malcontents = 167 and off it goes to the other place.

This was what the slim, lissom, nubile renaissance woman Yvette Cooper said ...
...and this is what the Cty savvy gent who evidently understands these things said

..and for these members of the opublic who cannot understand how Granite appears on the Balance Sheet as an asset but is a Trust whose beneficiaris the NE Downs Syndrome Group is beyond us ... but I smell a large roomful of lawyers (see Times beloe) getting ready to Hoover up very substabntial sums of dosh over many years, ready to make Jarndyce v Jarndyce look like a Sunday School PicNic. (But see newer post Saturday, February 23, 2008 Granite and the masters of the Master Trusts - exploiting loopholes with the City lawyers )

One wonders what Fitch and Co are doing to put a credit rating on Granite today ? See their report on Covered Bonds yesterday.

Late Breaking News
Public left with only 'rubbish' of Northern debts claims MP Scotsman (Edinburgh Evening News)

"However, during the Commons debate Mr Cable said Treasury Chief Secretary Yvette Cooper appeared not to know what was happening to the bank's best mortgages.He said: "What we are now being told is that in some way this has now been hived off to the benefit of a person or persons unknown, apparently, to the minister."What is going on here appears to be not public ownership of Northern Rock but an asset-stripping operation designed to benefit whoever, we don't know."This is a very serious development."

"A Treasury spokeswoman today said it was "simply wrong" to say that all the high quality mortgages are in Granite. She said: "Northern Rock does not sell all its high quality mortgages to Granite; it retains a substantial volume of high quality mortgages on its own balance sheet.Speaking outside the Commons, Labour's John McDonnell, said he had written to Chancellor Alistair Darling asking for an immediate statement."

See also BBC Online ..."Chancellor Alistair Darling has moved to calm fears about the nationalisation of Northern Rock after it emerged the bank's best assets would stay private.
Mr Darling said taxpayers would not benefit from the nationalisation of a firm holding £45bn of Northern Rock's most profitable mortgages. "

The Times Northern Rock advisers facing fees showdown -" Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Blackstone – are holding out for their full share of £75 million in agreed fees, despite the fact that the Government did not follow their advice to sell the bank. “The reality of it is that they all had letters that had a base amount and a ‘success’ amount,” one source said.
The base amount = £50 million, with £25 million “success” fee."

"The Government is already on the hook to pay a fee of between £15 million and £20 million to its own advisers, Goldman Sachs and the legal firm Slaughter and May." ..."The Treasury has also agreed to pay £5 million to each bidding team to cover the costs of their banking advisers, lawyers and accountants."

If you understand who own Granite, NEDSA, the BOE/taxpayers/ or someone else .. please let us know.

UPDATE : 23rd September If arrived from links elsewhere please also go to see newer post Saturday, February 23, 2008 Granite and the masters of the Master Trusts - exploiting loopholes with the City lawyers )

Save Bedford Hospital and the estimable Dr Barry Monk

"Save Bedford Hospital" is the website of the Save Bedford Hospital party, a political party registered with the Electoral Commission which will be fielding Dr Barry Monk, Consultant Dermatologist as their parliamentary candidate .

A well informed, incisive, media savvy scribe and plainly pain in the arse of the Bedford medical establishment . Barry provides evidence that there are sound scientifically minded, intelligent, rational people in the NHS who will raise their heads above the parapet.

Recommended ;
3rd February 2008

The fascinating contacts between Alan Johnson MP , the Health Secretary, and one time wannabe Deputy Leader of Nu Labour and Dr Reg Race who with his wife Amanda Moore runs Quality Health - this family business is one of a select group of “approved contractors” that health trusts must hire to conduct staff and patient surveys and which has contracts with 320 of the 487 NHS trusts to conduct annual surveys introduced by Labour ministers in 2003.

They met on November 13th to chat about the weather, Reg's contracts and possibly the £5,000 Reg (or more correctly Quality Health) he gave to Alan for his failed deputy leadership campaign.

Not for those with an anxious disposition Dec 22nd 2007

Statistics - how the NHS is having problems (and will continue to have) struggling to cope with winter / epidemic events.

And so to bed

HOSPITAL ALERTS
Amber alert: Early warning of pressure increase in the normal activity.
Red alert: Escalating pressure in one or more part of the system continuing to increase.
Black alert: Contingency measures are exhausted and pressures are not sustainable.

Check when you get rushed in this winter - the colours used to code the alert state have a certain mordant quality.

A patient's view
Getting personal
Public opinion

Where's Patricia Hewitt ? 16th September 2007

A very odd tale about the ousting of Peter Reading, chief executive of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, (salary £180K p.a.) is said to be on "unavoidable annual leave" and the trust ..." did not know when he was due to return."

It appears that The Department of Health asked the Strategic Health Authority to carry out a review into what went wrong with the Pathway project, a PFI scheme to transform the three Leicester hospital sites. (Last cost estimate £921 Mn. up from £711 Mn) Zuffar Haq, chairman of Leicester Patients' Group said that "I am very concerned that Mr Reading will be made a political scapegoat"

Anyway they succeeded in making him a ascapegoat and his retirement was announced on 21st September in such a hurry that "Pauline Tagg, our Chief Nurse, agreed to become acting Chief Executive for a limited period" ...

Now the good people of Leicester where Lord Patel spent many happy years looking down a microscope are currently blessed with an Interim Chief Executive Derek Smith former Chief Executive of Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust (For which he will receive £1,500 per day (Personneltoday.com) which is probably slightly more than Pauline Tagg collected doing the same job)

To be followed in May 2008 by Malcolm Lowe-Lauri, the Chief Executive of King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust who will be Leicester’s new Chief Executive. "“Malcolm has led both King’s College Hospital and before that Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals" says the hospitals website biography of this youthful wunderkind.

These NHS Chief Executives seem to collect Chief Executives jobs like some people collect stamps and roam the hinterlands of the service as wildebeest roam the veldt. Interesting that a new member has joined the Board - a Mrs Christine Emmett In addition to a whole roster of fascinating public jobs , she was ...er.... a non-executive director at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Anyway a site that is well worth a root if you are concerned about the black hole that is the NHS ... and if you live in the Bedford area well worth taking the opportunity to go to one of his public meetings, and come the election, put your shoulder to the wheel.

He also mentions the resurgence of syphilis (which comes within his speciality) a nasty, but asurprisingly easily treated problem with modern antibiotics, which has also arrived in the neonatal wards of Rochdale.

Links to other vibrant medical websites documenting the meltdown of what the damn Yanquis call socialised medicine can be found on the foul mouthed and fruity Dr Rant

There seems to a faint whiff of the barricades drifting across the lower ranks of the pill pushers.

Singapore Air Show - 787 compensation claims, booming S'pore aerospace industry and Temasek's well connected CEO

Steven Udvar-Hazy, chief executive International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC), the world's top plane leasing firm, is not a happy man.

ILFC have orders for 74 Boeing 787's and 15-20 of ILFC's 787 orders are expected to be affected by the the double production delays ... which are not necessarily the end of its problems.

The booming and busy (80,000 visitors, 827 exhibiting companies from more than 42 countries) Singapore Air Show is a hot bed of gossip about the costs to Boeing as ILFC is wanting compensation, as are Japan's All Nippon Airways , Australia's Qantas and Air India have already made their position clear about compensation. Steven wants compensation, he tells us "on a large scale" and puts the monthly income of Boeing 787 lease at US$1 million.

Airlines have so far ordered 857 of the planes, worth $140 billion at list prices.

Goodrich Corporation opened its new US$32 Mn. 530,000-square-foot aircraft component and systems maintenance and repair campus today which will employ 700 staff. It will be a stratgeic base to provide services for commercial and military aerospace customers from across Asia, Australia and the Pacific Rim. Services will cover a broad range of aircraft including new and future models such as the Airbus A380, Boeing 787 and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

Nearby Pratt & Whitney and their partner Eagle Services Asia (as Pratt & Whitney Global Service Partners ) have installed their patented EcoPower(R) closed-loop atomised water process to wash Singapore Airlines' fleet entire fleet of passenger and cargo aircraft engines. They claim this will result in savings of US $15 million in fuel costs and reduce CO2 emissions by 128 million pounds. This is because the improved EcoPower system can reduce fuel burn by as much as 1.2% percent and increase the exhaust gas temperature margin by as much as 15 degrees Celsius.

When opening the show yesterday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 56 (eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew - democratic dynasties rule OK ? **) said that the the new 300-hectare Aerospace Park in Seletar will help to boost the Singaporean aerospace industry which hit a record high in 2007 with an output of nearly US$7 billion.

"Last year, Boeing and Airbus announced record orders for new aircraft. In the next two decades, the global commercial aircraft fleet is expected to more than double in size," said the prime minister.

Airbus, announced a record year in 2007 having sold 1,341 aircraft and ending the year with a backlog of 3,600 orders. Boeing posted more orders in the year (1,413)

*** Lee leads the People's Action Party with 82 of the 84 seats in Parliment and enjoys an annual salary of US$2 Mn. Lee's wife , US educated technocrat, Ho Ching (#3 in Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women) is the director of state investment agency Temasek Holdings which handles US$160 Bn (ish) of state funds and is owned 100% by the Ministry of Finance. (Morgan Stanley source of valuation) - a substantial investor in Barclays Bank (US$4.34 billion June '07).

Web of cash, power and cronies by Eric Ellis Sept 29, 2007 explains how Singapore state investments provide Burma's pariah junta with the crucial equipment mostly denied by Western sanctions, and that Singapore has helped keep the junta and its cronies afloat for 20 years. 74-year-old junta leader Than Shwe has been getting his intestinal cancer treated in a Singapore government hospital, protected by Singapore security.

US Heparin production boosted by APP as Baxter and FDA still need to identify their problem with Chinese sourced drug component

It's an ill wind.

Schaumberg, IIlinois based APP Pharmaceuticals (formerly known as Abraxis Bioscience Inc. ) and Baxter each supplied roughly 50/50 o fthe heparin for the US market which is essential for haemodialysis. Now that Baxter have of heparin , APP have ramped up production to meet demand and have arranged new production lines at its Grand Island, N.Y., plant.

APP source the heparin product from several sources inspected and approved by both the FDA and the Chinese regulatory body SFDA.

APP shares rose 79 cents to $11.30 in trading on the Nasdaq on the news which was also affected by the University of Chicago Medical Center, announcing that it switched last month to APP product. A chain of 1,600 U.S. kidney-dialysis centers run by Fresenius Medical Care North America, a unit of Germany's Fresenius Medical Care AG, already have announced switching to buying exclusively from APP. Fresenius has 120,000 dialysis patients who get esential life saving treatments three times a week.

Shares of APP are still nearly 20 percent off a 52-week high of $15.25 the stock price hit in April of last year.

Baxter note that heparin makes up less than 1% of Baxter's corporate sales and are working with the FDA who are examining the Cherry Hill, N.J., Baxter facility and the Waunakee, Wis., plant of Baxter's supplier, Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC. Scientific Protein's Chinese joint venture, Changzhou SPL in Changzhou, China, is to be examined closely by a team that will include manufacturing experts and a Chinese-speaking chemist.

The FDA is still puzzling over the cause of the heparin reactions potentially tied to Baxter's version of heparin and they are also facing Congessional scrutiny about their failure to examine and approve Changzhou SPL which they claim was due to a mix up over similiar names of companies on their database.

Joseph Famulare, deputy director of the FDA drug center's office of compliance, said the name of the operation "that was sent to the office of compliance for evaluation was not the correct firm. It was another firm with a similar name," which had been inspected and found to be in compliance.

This problem has highlighted concern in the U.S. over the mounting number of foreign-sourced drug ingredients (unkown to many consumers) and the FDA's questionable ability to effectively monitor quality control.

Such Congressional concern might spill over into other practices outsourced to China - testing on animals, humans etc.,

Albanian / Kosovan Gas/Oil find

Here is a fascinating item that appears to have received little attention

Independent Resource Evaluation Confirms Existence of Giant Oil and Gas Prospects on Manas Petroleum's Albanian Exploration Blocks Manas Petroleum Corp. (MNAP.OB)

Baar, Switzerland, January 10th, 2008 Manas Petroleum Corporation is pleased to announce the results of a Resource Evaluation prepared by Gustavson Associates LLC regarding Manas Petroleum's blocks A, B,D and E in Albania.

The Report considers the licenses 8 primary and recognized prospects identified from approximately 4,000 kilometers of seismic shot by AlbPetrol, Shell, and Coparex on the concession position.

Gustavson assigns 2.987 billion barrels with 3.014 trillion cubic feet of associated gas as the P50 prospective oil resources in its oil with associated gas case. Gustavson notes that because of the depth it is possible that the prospects will hold natural gas. In its oil with a gas cap case Gustavson calculates the prospective resources to total 1.4 billion barrels of light oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Gustavson estimates that in the event only gas is present the P50 prospective resource is 28 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Gustavson examined the Manas Albanian license position which consists of Blocks A, B, D & E with a total of approximately 780,000 gross acres located along the NW-SE trending fold belt of northwestern Albania. (on the Kosovan border) The plays include potential conventional exploration targets involving sub-thrust hydrocarbon accumulations in fractured carbonates. Gustavson's assessment is limited to the potential undiscovered oil and gas resources underlying the company's licenses.

The report notes that:
"The primary exploration targets are sub-thrust fractured carbonate reservoirs similar to those discovered in the 1990's in the Apennines of Italy. During the same time Shell and Coparex discovered a deep under-thrust structure within the blocks that, by their calculations, has the potential to contain a combined 820 million barrels (MMBO) recoverable of oil."

It states: "Manas has this opportunity because Shell and Coparex suspended all exploration activity and abandoned the blocks in reaction to the extreme unrest in Albania and the conflict in neighboring Kosovo allowing Manas to later acquire these superbly defined, giant, virtually drill ready prospects."

See also
Manas - The ongoing conflict for control of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies

Gambian gambit - with Swedish switch and lengthy endgame to avoid night attacks

Gambian born Caockmari Omoike ,36 entered the UK as a Swedish national using a Swedish passport.

Caockmari Omoike of Lansdown Road, Crumpsall and Nyima Njai of Woodlands Road, Crumpsall ,one and the same person, made tax credit claims for a total of 18 children (9 each) for payments in excess of £940 a week.

Omoike began to claim Child Tax Credit from the end of January 2006 and Salford City Council's housing benefit investigation team and HMRC investigators got wind of the fraud in April 2006 - she had made over 200 telephone calls to the Tax Credit Helpline amending the size of her families. On the 9th June 2006 she was arrested at her one room flat on Lansdown Road to face trial for fraudulent tax credit claims totalling over £23,900

Omoike falsely claimed to work 16 hours per week to qualify for childcare. EU nationals living and working in the UK are allowed to claim tax credits under EU law.

She was first arrested in June 2006 and searches of her single room rented flat in Manchester it was established there were no children, and documents were found including ;

1.Award notices of tax credit in the names of Omoike and Nja
2. A postal redirection existed in the names of Omoike and Njai to redirect post to a PO box in Gambia 3. 3. Wire money transfers to Gambia (money also went to Sweden)
4. An unused return air ticket to Gambia for a future date
5. Multiple identity cards were seized in the names Omoike and Njai;

Omoike admitted the fraud, was released on bail and then led the Police a wild Goose chase for over 12 months via Armagh, and Cardiff before arrest and remand in custody on the 29th October 2007. In court on 10th January 2008 she pleaded guilty to 11 counts of Tax Credit Fraud ( £23,902.44) and three counts of Housing Benefit fraud (£3,498).

It isn't only Judge Anthony Ensor who is "concerned" about the simplicity with which she was able to claim for so many non-existent children, apparently without evidence of birth certificates.
It is impossible to believe she acted alone, or that other fraudsters aren't operating identical or similiar (so far) undetected scams. As the HMRC have managed to mislay the complete database of every family claiming tax credits, protestations that procedures are in place, routines have been re-examined, lessons have been learnt give the tax payer no confidence whatsoever .... and with unkown numbers of EU nationals arriving at Victoria bus station, Hull, Felixstowe, Harwich , Dover, Portsmouth and Poole docks and Stansted Airport every hour ....

Suspect fraud ? Call HM Revenue & Customs confidential line 0800 59 5000
Help required with tax credits ? Call Tax Credit Helpline 0845 300 3900

Pic : We don't intend to suggest that you money around with the HMRC but Gambia is a good place to get away from them for some ideas of fun in the sun try
http://www.hibiscushousegambia.com/
http://www.bikesnbuggies.co.uk/
http://www.paradiseisland-gambia.com/
http://www.guesthouse.gm/
http://www.realgambia.net/

Major General Elyezer Shkedy head of IAF tells Global audience how aerial forces are now involved in half Israeli anti terrorist ops - Guernica Redux

Major General Elyezer Shkedy, Commander, Israeli Air Force (IAF) since April 2004, one of Israel's first "Top Gun" F -16 pilots, made a presentation yesterday "Asymmetric Warfare in Urban Populations is The Real Test of Air Power" @ the Global Air Power conference which is part of the glittering and huge Singapore Air Show.

Selected recorded video images from actions recorded over the Gaza Strip and Lebanon demonstrated that "if air power isn’t precise, backed by real-time intelligence which can warn of potentially calamitous results (civilian casualties), and the action time between sensor and shooter brought down to minutes, then a significant part of that power can be restricted". Ho.Ho.Ho.

Rocket launchers were shown firing then racing for shelter into private buildings, rocket launchers placed near mosques, mortars close to schools. All this said the Commander has the potential for terrible collateral damage and civilian casualties if the intelligence does not pin-point in real time the location of the targets and the suitability of those targets for retaliatory action claimed the warfighter with special responsibilites for the war in Iran.

Commander Shkedy ran through a list of long range, medium range and short range systems that the IAF had been targeting.

Shkedy pointed out that in 2002, out of all terrorists engagements by the Isrtaeli military forces , the IAF was only responsible for around 5% of actions. However, after 2004 that percentage began to climb dramatically and that by 2007 46% of engagements were from the air.

Of course , so enthused by "precise air power, backed by real-time intelligence " was the Commander he failed to mention the indiscriminate use in Lebanon of cluster bombs on civilians. A period of relentless bombing made longer by the deliberate refusal to even attempt to stop the ceaseless aerial bombardment of towns and villages by Western political leaders.

Meanwhile, yesterday at 120-nation, 4 day conference commenced in New Zealand's capital, Wellington, on a proposed convention to ban cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians .

Human Rights Watch report "Flooding South Lebanon: Israel's Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006, "was launched which detailed how nearly 200 civilians have been killed by cluster bombs since the conflict ended. Haartez reported at the time , ""What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war. Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets. " They also had a report "IDF admits targeting civilian areas in Lebanon with cluster bombs ".

The United Nations said perhaps 1 million submunitions were still left behind in Lebanon

Arye Mekel, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman is quoted in the San Diego Times ;

“The use of cluster munitions is not prohibited under international law. Like other weapons, its use is subject to the laws of war,” he said. No mention of "precise air power, backed by real-time intelligence " there then.

In Israel Prime minister Ehud Olmert was left in little doubt that Israel’s highest military officers are fed up with straining at the leash and being held back from effective ground action to stamp out the Palestinian missiles and terror at source in Gaza.

Chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi : “The army stands ready to deepen and expand its operations (in Gaza) as needed in accordance with the decisions reached.”

Shkedi (No doubt anxious to utilise "precise air power, backed by real-time intelligence ") said at a separate venue: “For us, terrorists on the fence and missile fire are unacceptable.”

How long before the precisely aimed cluster bombs rain down on Gaza? Would Shkedi regard a lot of dead Palestinians....er .... "potentially calamitous results " ?

Bomb,Bomb,Iran ! Why bother there's plenty of Iraq and Afghanistan left yet

Air Force Link Feb 15th Airpower summary

In Afghanistan a total of 25 close-air-support missions were flown.

In total, coalition aircraft flew 43 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom

A Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet dropped a guided bomb unit-38 (2,000lb) in order to destroy an enemy rocket position in Basrah.

On Feb. 14, Air Force and RAF tanker crews flew 39 sorties and off-loaded approximately 2.7 million pounds of fuel to 210 receiving aircraft.

On February 16, the Los Angeles Times reported that a US air strike managed to kill 9 Iraqi civilians and 3 Sons of Iraq. See here "Errant U.S. airstrike kills 9 in Iraq"

On February 16th the Seattle Times reported "3 Iraq guards die in errant U.S. strike" - 3 neighborhood security guards were killed and two others injured when U.S. attack helicopters fired at their checkpoint south of Baghdad , Iraqi police said. The article also reports that the U.S. military has acknowledged a Feb. 2 airstrike that killed 9 people, including at least 3 Awakening members and a child.

An Awakening Council in Zab said four of its members were killed when attack helicopters fired at a house in the area about 20 miles southwest of Kirkuk during raids late Wednesday and early Thursday 14/5th Feb. Two women were also killed.

Sheik Mohammed Ghuriari, who heads the so-called Awakening Councils that supply fighters at US$10 per diem (called Concerned Local Citizens or Sons of Iraq by US PR staff) ) to protect neighborhoods in the north of Babil province, said it was the third U.S.-led strike on their checkpoints in fewer than two months. He claimed 19 people had been killed and 14 injured.

Read Dahr Jamail's detailed report Here see also Bastard.logic here

"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq," Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, of an aerial attack on a clutch of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad on January 10th. Two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

"They were bombing everything and everybody."

"Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area"

The Air Force Link Jan 19th Air Power Summary or on the 11th Jan made no mention of such an attack or the use of B1 bombers.

Here's paragraph 22 of a 34-paragraph January 22nd story by Stephen Farrell of the New York Times:

"The threat from buried bombs was well known before the [Arab Jabour] operation. To help clear the ground, the military had dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of bombs to destroy weapons caches and I.E.D.'s."

A January 21st Los Angeles Times Iraq piece by Ned Parker and Saif Rasheed;

"The U.S. military also said in a statement that it had dropped 19,000 pounds of explosives on the farmland of Arab Jabour south of Baghdad. The strikes targeted buried bombs and weapons caches. In the last 10 days, the military has dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of explosives on the area, which has been a gateway for Sunni militants into Baghdad."

This piece also mentioned the destruction in the area of a Mine protected vehicle (MRAP) which Lord Patel posted about . Also see article by By Tom Engelhardt

US Military Camp Bondsteel, In the newly "Independent" Kosovo

Have just discovered this fascinating, detailed and highly informative article on this huge US military outpost. Also this piece from le Monde by By Jean-Arnault Dérens - Independence for Kosovo: the domino effect An end to Balkan national states ..

"The emergence of states and the definition of their borders marked the entry of the Balkans into modern politics. The new states were generally nationalist, based on and adapted from the models provided by the specific history of western Europe."

"Kosovo is now a pawn in the planetary battle between Russia and the United States, so little attention will be paid to the real interests of the Albanians, Serbs and others living in Kosovo."

Which is just another way of describing the mongrelisation of Europe by allowing unlimited, uncontrolled immigration and the flowering and fostering of narrow nationalist and historic differerentiation....Wales, Scotland ... Basques ..

...or setting up the dominoes to fall.

No wonder they keep prattling on about the Treaty of Westphalia ( a leitmotif of Tony Blair) which signalled the arrival of the nation state in Euope.

Otto Dix and Portraiture - Stuttgart Kunstmuseum Exhibition

Otto Dix (1891-1969) was a leading member of the Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity movement, who first held a group exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, along with Georg Grosz and Max Beckmann . The Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart, southern Germany, which has one of the biggest collections of Dix's work has launched an ehibition of his work.

In 1923 Dix's painting, The Trench was purchased by the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. When the painting was exhibited in 1924 its depiction of decomposed corpses in a German trench created such a public outcry that the museum's director, Hans Secker, was forced to resign.

Best known for his impressionist portraits portraying the worst excesses of the Weimar underbelly his ruthless and disturbing realism upset the National Socialists when they obtained power in 1933. he was labelled as a "degenerate" and lost his job as a post as a teacher at the Dresden Academy teacher. Dix's dismissal letter said that his work "threatened to sap the will of the German people to defend themselves".

Dix's paintings The Trench and War cripples were exhibited in the state-sponsored Munich 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst. They were later burned.

The exhibition, entitled "Match: Otto Dix and the Art of Portraiture," will also show 88 portraits by other artists spanning the centuries, from Lucas Cranach and Andy Warhol. "It is only by seeing his works alongside the works of other artists that the timeless importance of Otto Dix the portraitist becomes clear," the exhibition curator Daniel Spanke told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

Pic at head of post - A 1923 portrait of Mrs. Martha Dix, the artist's longtime lover and later wife.

Gallery of pictures from the exhibition
Gallery of pictures that can be seen in Germany
Galleries of pictures worldwide

Newborn Baby 1927
Selbstbildnis (mit Zigarette) (Self-Portrait with Cigarette), 1922Drypoint34.6 x 27.4 cm (image)The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts purchase, funds from the Patrons of Art and Music 1960.72.14

Good news at last for Arsenal fans - Amazing pictures !!!!

Nobody in Manchester really wants to pile on the agony for the residents of Woolwich but there is a glimmer of light amongst the many supporters of their struggling football club.

Finans magazine's latest list of Russian zillionaires is led by Oleg Deripaska at US$40 billion his dosh handily exceeds the US$17 billion of Chukotka governor and Chelsea Football Club owner, divorcee, playboy Roman Abramovich.

But it's good news all round for the obese Co-owner of the “Arsenal”, Alisher Usmanov who was upgraded to 12th, (from 22nd place) with US $13,3 billion and drew almost level with Vagit Alekperov of fast growing LUKoil ($13,5 billion).Latest pic of Alisher surfing.

Boris Berezovsky who fled to avoid prosecution to the UK where he was welcomed by Tony Blair and sweetly (and very swiftly) given UK citizenship is down to 80th, with an estimated wealth of $1.3 billion.

Keep an eye out however for glamorous , slim, pouting, beautiful Elena Baturina head of Inetko Group who was downgraded to 27 from 17, with US$7 billion but is also Mrs Mayor of Moscow as her spouse was Mayor Yury Luzhkov . (Forbes has her at 335th in the world)

After Luzhkov became mayor, her Inteko company became the largest construction firm in the city, mostly building prefab housing when his term as Mayor ended she bailed out and sold off a lot of her interests - and sensibly took the cash.

She is the president of the Equestrian Federation of Russia and tells su that she spends most of her time with horses and her two daughters.

Blue Tongue confirmed in Ulster. Ulster FU call for ban on cattle imports

The Ulster Farmers' Union has very sensibly called for a voluntary ban in relation to the import of animals from bluetongue-affected areas after confirmation of blue tongue disease in a single cow at an Antrim farm

The animal had been imported from the Netherlands. A further 23 cows and four calves will now be slaughtered following further tests.

Northern Ireland's Chief Veterinary Officer Bert Houston said another farm which received animals from the same lorry from the Netherlands is also under restriction as a precaution. The shipment had followed all the import control procedures that have been put in place to protect Northern Ireland from the disease.

Shrinking UK Defence Budget and expanding demands Feb 20th showdown - Des Browne (wearing MOD hat not the tartan tammy) and the Top Brass

HMS Illustrious, the UK Navy's 25-year-old aircraft carrier, is a "ready response" part of the dwindling UK fleet. She often sets sail without her complement of Falklands War winning Harrier jump-jets .

Why ?

Probably (if airworthy) they are busy frightening the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Now HM Illustrious has trouble even going to sea. - crews said goodbye to their loved ones on January 21st as they set out to head a multinational flotilla in the Indian Ocean for 16 week long Operation Orion 08. This is to visit 20 ports in the Mediterranean, Africa, Middle East, South Asia and the Far East and is part of the Royal Navy’s regular operating pattern, repeating a similar deployment to the Indian Ocean in 2006.


Commander United Kingdom Carrier Strike Group, Commodore Tom Cunningham, said at the time:

"Orion 08 is a great opportunity for the RN to demonstrate one of its core capabilities. The ships' companies and support networks have been working tremendously hard to get the ships to sea on time and we are now all looking forward to this deployment which will allow us to further develop Joint Force Harrier operations and UK relationships in this important region.”

2 days later she was back in Portsmouth for repairs to a failure of meat freezers on board - essential in warmer climes. Apparently cheaper to return to port than fly out a plumber.

On February 8th Illustrious was to be found 70miles west along the English Channel at Portland fixing a problem in separating oil from bilge water.

Then on February 13th a faulty propellor-shaft had to be mended.

Her escort ships - the one's providing defense cover had troubles, with ...er... an unresponsive air-defence system.

Now HM Illustrious is going to miss an exercise in Oman - shortage of Harriers. Again.

Whilst the Navy, naturally, puts on a brave face and part time Ministers of Defence boast of two new “super-carriers” which may be built to carry the stealthy new allied Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) - which is hitting snags and breaking budgets. HM Illustrious is designed to be taken out of service in 2014 and be replaced by one of the 2 new Queen Elizabeth class carriers.

These spanking new carriers are making a hole in an already overstretched dfence budget ... facing at least a £500 Mn hole this year building up to a £2 Bn shortfall at the end of the decade.

On February 20th service chiefs and civil servants will try to agree on a savings plan for approval by Des Browne, when he isn't held up on running Scotland by proxy .

The bottom line is £2 billion must be taken out of the £12 billion annual equipment budget over the next two years in order to balance the books . At the same time paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , improving soldiers' pay and conditions to boost necessary recruitment and retention and probably another fast developing black hole in Kosovo / Serbia.

The navy is paying the price for the carriers: its eight existing destroyers will probably be replaced by just six of the new Type 45 ships (The first, HMS Daring, launched February '07 and HM Dauntless Jan 27th) .

The attack submarine fleet is likely to shrink from the current nine to six new Astute-class vessels. Nobody knows what will replace the 17 frigates. Britain could one day find itself with two new carriers, but too few escorts to protect them and not enough planes. They may sail, but will they be able to fight?

Joint Strike Fighter - Engine,STOVL version , Rolls Royce power plant and UK carriers at risk as Congress doles out 2009 Military pork barrel ration

The future of the Joint Strike Fighter is of critical concern to both the future defence strategy of the UK, the Navy and it's only aircraft engine manufacturer.

Congress presides over a massive pork barrel for the military industrial complex but it does, ultimately, want to develop the best and most lethal tools to support their role as the world's policeman.

When developing the F - 16 they were keen to ensure that General Electric (GE) and Pratt & Whitney (P&W) were pitted against each other to power, what was then seen as a world beater. So when the F35 Joint Strike Fighter was entering it's developmental phase, the Pentagon, who were pushing the Lockheed airframe complete with the P & W F135 Congress demanded they look at the GE/Rolls Royce alternative.

Now the argument has surfaced again in dramatic form as news has filtered out that on February 4th the F-135 had another turbine blade failure whilst on test. A third stage low pressure blade on flight test engine (FTE 6) which was en route to power the short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35 B aircraft BF1 (see Banner above). Which is the version that the Royal Navy require for their 2 spanking new aircraft carriers.

The first failure in August during ground testing was eventually traced to high cycle fatigue as a result of vibrations with other components on the third LP stage ( which has been added to power the lift fan) and P&W now feel they have managed to resolve the problem and proof tested FTE-1 and FTE -3 .

This latest test was designed to allow identification of blades prior to failure and it failed - which delays testing of the BF-1 expected to fly the STOVL plane in May.

Back in the UK Rolls Royce have announced a cut back of 2,800 staff worldwide - The company refused to say where the cuts will come, but it is likely most will be in Britain - probably 1,500 in the UK. Almost 60% of Rolls' 39,500 workers are based in Britain. More than half of those - 12,500 - are at its Derby manufacturing base, with another 3500 in Bristol.

Whilst Congress doles out the pork in the 2009 Military estimates GE is pitching again. Congress added US$480 million for GE's engine before approving the budget in he 2008 appropriation . It found US$370 million the year before. Congress are being asked by GE for US$440 million this year.

GE also is anxious to point out that the US government has already invested heavily in its engine — US$2.3 billion by the end of fiscal 2008 — and says killing it now would waste that money already spent. On February 13th they were able to announce that the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team had successfully completed its Critical Design Review, a major milestone in the F136 engine development program.

A critical matter for Rolls Royce as they mull their cutbacks.

P& W 's woes couldn't have come at a better time. Of course they could just ditch the overweight, fault prone STOVL version.... and make the UK carriers planeless. But they won't because the US Navy need it and Rolls Royce have the technology to get the STOVL element right.

Is Spring Wheat at the top of the market ?

The Market closed up 82 on Friday at MGEX. Kansas and Chicago are still operating at 60 cent daily limits whilst MGEX is using US$1.35 (which declines by 50% after 2 days).

Evidently demand is being affected by price ... but Iraq and Egypt have entered large contracts.

If these sort of levels maintain .. and crop conditions in the Southern Hemisphere suggests they will, it is early to make any judgements for the Northern Hemisphere.

It is difficult to see any reason why prices should not be sustained, short a massive global recession. Therefore in the next 12 - 24 months we can expect to see prices of grain related products, bread, pastas, flours up 15% to 20% and protein based on grain , poutry, pig, cattle rising higher.

Corn will be boosted by non food markets for fuel and we can expect US$5 a bushel plus for the next 2 seasons.

UPDATE Financial Times Monday

William Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, a Nebraska-based food consultancy, said the price surge was not a temporary hump but rather a structural change.
“We are not facing a short-term price blip...but a sustained move to a new and higher plateau for prices,” he added.

The American Bakers Association stopped short of asking for an export moratorium but pressed for curbs on foreign sales. Lee Sanders, ABA vice-president for government relations, said there was usually a surplus in the US wheat market equivalent to three months of US consumption.
“It is currently at a very low one-month level, which is extremely concerning,” she said.
Cereals traders said it was unlikely Washington would support export curtailments, but added that the call highlighted the tightness of the market.

CNN 60 year low of US wheat stocks Video "A Load of Crop" how ethanol subsidy for corn growers is distorting markets byreducing wheat acreage.

And by the Way ...

Platinum, soared to $2,030.60 at the New York Mercantile exchange, its 11th record high in 12 days. April futures, settled up $22.20 at $2,005.90 an ounce on the back of news on Wednesday that a power crisis in top producer South Africa that has curtailed mine production could persist for years.

Spot platinum hit a record of $2,205 an ounce and closed at $1,997.00/7.00 in New York.

April gold at the COMEX division of the NYMEX rose 60 cents to $910.80 an ounce. Spot gold closed in New York at $907.10/90, up from $906.70/7.50 on Wednesday.

In electronic ICE Futures, the U.S. May cocoa contract was up $57 at $2,545 a tonne in late trade, having peaked at $2,560, a level last seen in June 1984.

lUXOR 4 u FORUM .."We are currently experiencing in Luxor a flour shortage, and it is being rationed. Many people do not realise this, but supplies from America have been delayed. "

Northern Wreck to be nationalised - but B & B offers quick buck to be made

A Nationalisation bill for Northern Rock was agreed with the Conservative Party (NOT WITH VINCE CABLE IT SEEMS) Week Ending December 1st, to put Northern Wreck plc into public ownership - and to rush it through in one day before Christmas.

The Government wanted interested parties to submit final deals by the end of the week. Parliament went into recess on December 17 and returned on January 7.

The reason for this was 3 fold.

1. It gave the Gubment room for negotiations in dealings with Branson et al.
2. It put the bidders on notice that the Gubment meant bizniz
3. It pulled the rug out from under Vince Cable the only person to talk sense about Northern Wreck.

They now realise Vince's point that nationalisation is the "least worst solution" and have simply run out of road and with the budget looming on March 12th they want the whole thing buried before then.

Swift Bill rushed through - end of story. Draw a line, Move on... nothing to see here.... and all the gory details will be concealed from public gaze.

Hopwever here is something worth pondering

Bradford and Bingley share price has been sinking fast all year. 44% down over 6 months and a massive drop on last week of 27% to 176 p = Market Cap just over £1 Bn. Last weeks fall due to "Preliminary" results (i.e unaudited so beware) on Wednesday for Y/E 31st Dec.

Total dividend per share up 5% to 21.0p (2006: 20.0p)
Tier 1 capital ratio 8.6%, total capital ratio 15.1% (2006: 7.6%, 13.2%)
Residential lending balances up 27% to £39.4bn (2006: £31.1bn)
Savings balances up 7% to £21.0bn (2006: £19.7bn)
Group net interest margin 1.10% (2006: 1.19%)
Underlying cost:income ratio improved to 42.8% (2006: 44.2%)*
Underlying profit before tax up 5% to £351.6m (2006: £335.9m)*
Statutory profit before tax £126.0m (2006: £246.7m)*
Total customer deposits funded 60% of customer loans (2006: 61%)

Which is all very, very good news excpet the profit but then they have written off losses on sale of commercial and housing association portfolios of £58.0m, treasury asset "impairment" of £94.4m, hedge ineffectiveness of £23.5m and other fair value movements on treasury instruments of £49.7m.

Underlying costs increased by 3% to £280.2m (2006: £271.6m), improving the underlying cost:income ratio to 42.8% (2006: 44.2%) so no worries there of runaway costs.

The total number of cases three months or more in arrears and in possession has increased to 6,170 (2006: 4,337), equating to 1.63% (2006: 1.30%) of the total book. No real problems there although not ideal.

An improvement in loan-to-value across our whole residential lending portfolio adjusted for house price inflation is 55% (2006: 53%) providing a good level of equity.

Then the very good news ..

We grew the Group’s total assets by 15% to £52.0bn (2006: £45.4bn). This growth was due to a 27% increase in residential lending balances to £39.4bn (2006: £31.1bn) driven by record gross residential mortgage advances, up 36% at £14.0bn (2006: £10.3bn). Of this total, £9.7bn (2006: £7.7bn) was originated through intermediaries and direct channels, and £4.3bn (2006: £2.5bn) was purchased from GMAC-RFC and Kensington Mortgages. Our estimated share of net new lending in the UK mortgage market was 7.7%, more than double our share of outstanding balances of 3.3%.

Now remember the Market cap is £1 Bn. For this you get £50 odd Billion of assets and Total customer deposits £24 Billion which is funding 60% of customer loans.

The real worry is the asset mix ;
Buy-to-Let 45% (down from 40% so moving in the right direction)

Self-certified mortgages 16 %

Other residential ( ie traditional owner ocupier) 15%

Commercial and housing association 2% (down from 11%)

Wholesale / Other 22%

That Buy to Let looks unhealthy and if the market turns down current wisdom is that this will be hit first. But. But with increasing immigration and changing lifestyles renting is growing and demand is rising, not slowing, so perhaps this is even a plus.

All in all the shares (yielding 11.9% PE 6.25 !) look a good buy first thing in the morning. ... and if Lord Patel is not the only one working this one out then they could jump over £2.00 early doors giving an instant 10-12 % capital gain.

And of course if the bidders for Northern Wreck ( or anyone else) , now thwarted, have been running their ruler over B & B (which they most certainly have) and decide to make a bid ....?

Kosovo - another swamp to get mired in to meet US colonial and imperial ambitions - this time in the Balkans - AGAIN

UK's last 1,000 soldiers rushed out to Balkans Sunday Telegraph

Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent reports that 1,000 troops of the 1st Bn Welsh Guards are off to what will tomorrow be the newly independent state of Kosovo .

This unexpected deployment has been ordered (he reports) in response to fears that the celebrations of the event could so easily "slide" into "ethnic cleansing".

A bit rich when the Prime Minister of the state is a war criminal like Hashim Thaci (his nom de guerre "Gjarpëri" [the Snake]) whose KLA thugs ethnically cleansed 250,000 Serbs under the umbrella of US and RAF bombing.


Hashim Thaci had / has enormous power in the "Drenica-Group" a shadowy criminal organization that controlled/ controls between 10% and 15% of all criminal activities in Kosovo (smuggling arms, stolen cars, oil, cigarettes and prostitution, people trafficking). The Group can rely on exterior links with close connections to the Albanian, Czech and Macedonian mafias locally and throughout Europe; Thaci's sister is married to Sejdija Bajrush, one of the most notorious Albanian mafia leaders

This is plainly insane.

This is a stretch too far, and unsustainable.

On top of this it has been slyly leaked that the "turkey" Chinooks which are being re-furbed so they can fly in cloud, will not be operational for at least 12 months . Which we all know actually means 18 months.DV.

So we are to be mired yet again in a war we can avoid, at a cost we cannot estimate, under equipped, as ever, ill equipped.

The Serbians are told they must forget their national aspirations.

The Kosovo Albanians are allowed to foster their absurd national aspirations . Their claim in Kosovo to statehood is legally dubious, and nonsensical as the Albanian state already exists in Europe. There is no ned for another one.

There is however a massive US military facility. Camp Bondsteel [CBS] is enormous : 955 acres or 360,000 square meters. It has a perimeter of 7 miles. Bondsteel is located on rolling hills and farmland near the city of Ferizaj/Urosevac near the border with Macedonia where other US military facilities exist. It's location was not an accident of geography. Who renteed / sold the land ? Nobody, they just plonked it down where they wanted to and had been planning for several years.





Built by Brown & Root Services Corp., part of Halliburton the camp also includes a prison which was visited by Alvaro Gil Robles, Human Rights Commissioner for the Council of Europe, who in 2005...

""What I saw there, the prisoners' situation, was one which you would
absolutely recognize from the photographs of Guantanamo. The prisoners were
housed in little wooden huts, some alone, others in pairs or threes. Each hut
was surrounded with barbed wire, and guards were patrolling between them. Around
all of this was a high wall with watchtowers. Because these people had been
arrested directly by the army, they had not had any recourse to the judicial
system. They had no lawyers. There was no appeals process. There weren't even
exact orders about how long they were to be kept prisoner."

(There is also a Texas College; two cappuccino bars, a Burger King, Taco Bell, and an Anthony's Pizza pizzeria). In building the camp Brown & Root paid Kosovan workers between $1 and $3 per hour. The local manager said wages were so low because, “We can’t inflate the wages because we don’t want to over inflate the local economy.”

About 4,000 US service members were stationed at Camp Bondsteel in about 2004 in the farm fields near Urosevac, and another 2,000 were at Camp Montieth, near Gnjilane.(The names derive from Army Staff Sgt. James L. Bondsteel, honored for heroism in Vietnam, and Army 1st Lt. Jimmie W. Montieth Jr, honored for heroism in France during World War II.) The camp also serves as the NATO headquarters for KFOR's Multinational Task Force East (MNTF-E).

The military redesigned the SEAhuts specifically for Kosovo. Each wooden structure has a male and a female latrine and six rooms housing six service members each. The huts have heat, hot water, air conditioning, plumbing, electricity and telephones.

The US have no iontention of leaving any time soon - they have even built the only sewage treatment works in the whole of Kosovo.

In sectors controlled by other Western powers, KFOR soldiers who are living in bombed out apartment blocks and old factories joke, “What are the two things that can be seen from space? One is the Great Wall of China, the other is Camp Bondsteel.”

European politicians have now awoken to the fact that the US used the 79 days of bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel. Before the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Washington Post (28 Feb 99) declared, “With the Middle-East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly over rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil.”

The reasons for the Kosovo War, which were based on exaggerated and totally false claims of "humanitarian" crises, must be seen as a (necessary) prelude to establishing a masssive US presence in the Balkans. If the US have to rely on supporting corrupt crooks like Thaci, so be it.. as the saying goes ,"he may be a sonofabitch ...."

With the recent Russian / Putin / Bulgarian / Serbian agreements and start of work on South Stream (see previous posts) and the foundering of the US backed Rebecca pipeline, things have just begun to become very, very serious.

Naturally when Uncle Sam calls, John Bull snaps to attention.

EG : Ruairi OConnell our Man in Pristina - from his Blog.

"It is clear that the Serbs have suffered too since the start of the 1990s.
My Serb friends often tell me that the Serbs were Milosevic's biggest victims. I
don't buy this. But I would agree that no-one has done more harm to the Serbs -
whether in Serbia or elsewhere - than Milosevic and the people who carried out
his policies. In any case, I am clear about what our (UK, Europe, my) long-term
goal is - it's to get the whole of the region ready for EU membership."

1. Everything is down to Milosevic,.

2. Fuck the natives. This is what we want. EU policy must prevail - it seems with the need for even more of the ill equipped, ill led, ill trained UK stretched military might.

In a symbolic speech today Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica marked Serbia's National Day, which commemorates the birth of the Serbian state.

"All of our state institutions and citizens should be united today," Kostunica told the crowd in Orasac, site of the first Serbian uprising against the Turks in 1804.

"There should be no differences between us. This is why, as you know, the government of Serbia reached the historic decision yesterday to annul, ahead of time and for all time, the declaration of a fake state on Serbian territory."

Keep your eyes on Mitrovica in the news bulletins.

Curious Footnote :Bill Gertz Washington Post Published May 9, 2007

6 foreign-born Muslims accused of planning a shooting attack at the U.S. military base of Fort Dix included four ethnic Albanians, and U.S. officials say their arrests highlight how Islamist groups are using the Balkans region to help in recruiting and financing terrorism.

Prosecutors described the men as "radical Islamists," with four coming from the province of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia, where the ethnic Albanian population of Muslims fought one of the several wars that grew out of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Suspect Agron Abdullahu, 24 who faces only weapons violations in the case, was described in court papers as a "sniper in Kosovo."

The US authorities said that Abdulahu was a sharp shooter in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) before fleeing to the US. Fort Dix is a training ground for American soldiers and reservists before they are sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in 1999 it served as a shelter for thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo.

How many Iraqi refuges have fled to US ? Zero ?

Now what were all those Albanians doing at Fort Dix - 4 of whom are claimed to have plotted something nasty with an FBI agent provocateur ?.

Text of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia February 17, 2008 11:11 AM