Reds Square - World Exclusive : Amazing Pictures !!!

Lord Patel can exclusively reveal that Vladimir Putin has new signs ready to erect tonight, re-naming Reds Square (Квадрат красных цветов) in celebration of the victory of the world's best football team over a bunch of what he jokingly calls, " a bunch of southern jessies" (a rough translation of an old proverb referring to the State of Georgia) (2-1).

Lord Patel was awoken early by an urgent phone call from glamorous Alina Kabaeva, Vladimir's future wife and current bed companion to tell him this ... naturally she wanted him to be the first to know.

To reciprocate these feelong of international brotherhood Manchester City Council will also be simultaneously renaming Albert Square in Manchester as Reds Square.

Manchester has of course strong links with St Petersburg from the days when Vladimir was Mayor. Manchester / St Petersburg is one of the oldest "Friendship" cities (AKA twinned cities) in the world.

"The Authorities" to log every UK phone call, e-mail. fax, IP call, file download /transfer, for 12 months and keep what they want for ever

In Gormless Gordon's "Government Draft Legislatative Program" or the Alternative Queen's Speech ,Page 52 outlined a proposed Communications Data Bill.

The purpose was yet another measure for the Authorities ,"to extend to the whole of the UK" , to provide "the ability of authorities to carry out their counter-terror, crime prevention and public safety duties and to counter these threats ". which they claim would be undermined if "the legislative framework on access to communications data (was not brought up to date) with changes taking place in the telecommunications industry and the move to using Internet Protocol (IP) core networks".

The main elements of the Bill are:

􀁵􀀀 Modify the procedures for acquiring communications data and allow
this data to be retained;

􀁵􀀀 Transpose EU Directive 2006/24/EC (of 15th March 2006) on the retention of communications data into UK law. (see Para 10 - On 13 July 2005, the Council reaffirmed in its declaration condemning the terrorist attacks on London the need to adopt common measures on the retention of telecommunications data as soon as possible. )

In the Daily Mail Wednesday May 20th 2008 Daniel Bates writes that ,"Massive Big Brother database will track every phone call and email sent in Britain" (which Lord Patel assumed was already in operation) and says (without disclosing a source ) that "Internet service providers and telephone companies would be forced to hand over records to the Home Office, which would keep them on a computer system."

All forms of electronic communication face being monitored, including social networking sites and text messages.The database would also include details of how long individuals spend on the internet.The government would retain the data for 12 months and security services and police could seek court permission to access it in the fight against terrorism

This he explains means that obligation Telecoms firms have had since last October to keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months would be extended to all forms of electronic communications. This means incorporating all the Items detailed in Article 5 of the EU Directive 2006/24/EC (a 2 1/2 page detailed list) although the Directive allows for retention periods of from 6 months to 2 years (Article 6) .

A nameless (male) A Home Office spokesman is quoted who claimed that retaining communications information was essential for protecting national security and comically emphasised powers to hold information were subject to strict safeguards.

"Communications data - the who, how, when and where of a communication but not the what (content) of the communication (EU Directive 2006/24/EC Article 5 Para 2 "2. No data revealing the content of the communication may be retained pursuant to this Directive.") - is a crucial tool for protecting national security, preventing and detecting crime and protecting the public."

It is worth noting that Article 6 Para (d) states,"(d) the data, except those that have been accessed and preserved, shall be destroyed at the end of the period of retention." Which is virtually meaningless, the "Authorities " can keep what they want and destroy the rest - how would we ever know ?

Meanwhile Gormless Gorden's Queen's Bill explains ...The draft Bill will then be made available on www.homeoffice.gov.uk. In the meantime, any comments or questions about these proposals should be directed to CommsData@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk.

All that the Home Office website has currently, is ..."Communications Data Bill
The Communications Data Bill will ensure that public authorities can continue to gather and use communications data needed to help protect the country from terrorism and stop the violence caused by organised crime (?) ."

Political Quotes are provided by the Daily Mail ..

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "Given ministers' appalling record at maintaining the integrity of databases holding people's sensitive data, this could be more of a threat to our security, than a support."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the database was "an Orwellian step too far".

We will see who votes against it.

It is worthwhile noting that Assistant Information Commissioner Jonathan Bamford is quotes as having said : "We are not aware of any justification for the State to hold every UK citizen's phone and internet records.

"We have really doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable."

"We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society ... the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when that data is lost, traded or stolen."

Original images from which Johnny mobile telephone caller abstracted available here

PDATE : The Guradian covers the story and reminds readers that 3 Mn e-mails are sent every day and last year 57 Mn texts were sent.

FCUKED - UK Nuclear Policy absolutely un-fucking believable

USA Plans for new Nuclear Plants

The US Senate approved funding for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at US$821.6 million for fiscal 2007 and US$916.6 for Fiscal 2008.

NRC Chairman Dale Klein said on February 8th 2007 they needed to take on 600 new staff to cope with licensing of new reactors that utilities want to build in the coming decade - helping to deal with the graying workforce the agency is dealing with.

He also encouraged the nuclear industry to work at encouraging young Americans to join the industry through financial incentives to students.

“Look at it this way,” said Klein. “The nuclear industry will be spending billions on hardware. It would be foolhardy not to spend the millions necessary to develop the human capital to operate all that expensive machinery efficiently.”

On February 4, 2008 The U.S. NRC released its proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget to , requesting a total of $1.02 billion which is a hike of $90.9 million increase over the FY 2008 budget for enhanced regulatory activities driven primarily by continued industry interest in constructing new nuclear facilities and increased oversight of existing reactors, materials and waste licensing.

UK also has Plans (of a sort) for new Nuclear Plants

Paul Howarth, Director of Research at the Dalton Nuclear Institute at Manchester University said recently, "there is now desperate search to find the skills necessary to assess and test designs, build, and monitor the Government's declared nuclear power strategy. ...The nuclear industry went through a very unpopular period in the 80s and early 90s,” Even in the UK, where we still have a nuclear industry, we just about have enough expertise to evaluate new reactor designs. There is a serious need to refresh our skills base.”

Following on from the decision to build new atomic power stations, the UK government announced the formation of The National Skills Academy for Nuclear, to assist employers in the sector with training the 5,900 to 9,000 graduates and 2,700 to 4,500 skilled trades that will be needed over the next ten years. The UK’s new plants are to be located on the sites of existing generators, which must be decommissioned first, making decommissioning skills the first priority.

Elsewhere in Europe expansion plans have been setback with the news that the Finnish Olkiluto-3 plant, the first nuclear plant ordered in Western Europe since the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster was scheduled to come on line in 2009. This has now been postponed until 2011, which has pushed up bidgeted costs from US$3 billion to US$4.4 billion.

Supporters of nuclear energy argue that higher construction costs will be balanced by the lower fuel costs. But with only marginal differences between the cost of electricity generation from nuclear or coal-fired plants, delivering plants on time and to budget is critical.

The Finnish plant, being built by France’s Areva and the German company Siemens, is seen as a test case for Europe’s nuclear future. The whole project is being closely watched by older EU member states, many of which, like the UK, plan to pile investment into the nuclear industry in the next few years.

See previous post Tuesday, March 18, 2008 Training Nuclear Engineers - Lord Jenkin asks a very important question to which can now be added 2 contributions made by Lord Patel's fellow and cioncerned Members of the House of Lords ...

Lord Marlesford: (Con. Life Peer 1991) My Lords, does Britain have the capability to design and construct a nuclear power station so that it can come on stream, as the Government’s target has it, in 2020? If it does not, history will judge the Government harshly for the 10 years of delay in making a major strategic decision. Have they not failed to cherish and largely dismantled the capability we need? (Well worth a read is his contribution to hounding Lord Drayson over the a catalogue of major faults of the useless £2.017 billion Bowman radio here April 2007)

Lord Krebs: My Lords, the Minister has told us that the Government require a supply of skilled people trained in physics departments in the universities of this country. Would she agree that the recent cuts in funding to physics departments through the shortfall in the Science and Technology Facilities Council is a mistake and that those cuts should now be reversed?

With a typical Pollyannerish view from Baroness Vadera from a floundering Government ...

Lord Desai: (Labour.Economist 1991)My Lords, will the Government make sure that the nuclear plants are not only delivered on time but also at the proper cost—not with the usual 300 per cent overruns —and that they produce power economically?

Baroness Vadera: My Lords, I am pleased to say that that will be a risk carried by the private sector. (Like the London Underground perhaps ? In which Shreiking Lady Vadera was much involved)

In the meantime, the UK and other countries in Europe will have to look abroad to get the skills they need to bring the industry forward. “Student secondments and exchanges are already on the increase through the European Framework Programme,” says Howarth. But there is international competition for skills. “Countries outside Europe, such as Korea, Canada and Japan, are looking at ways to increase student mobility by providing opportunities for more overseas work and secondments.”

The curriously National Skills Academy for Nuclear was launched at the Science Museum, London on the 31st January this year," by the Skills Minister David Lammy and the Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks, with the usual metropolitan junketing , the Press Rlease breathlessly tells us ..."175 Nuclear employers, training providers and key stakeholders who came together to celebrate the success of this employer-led initiative."

"The National Skills Academy for Nuclear will play a transformational role for the sector. The changing skills mix required by the nuclear sector, demands increased flexibility and mobility. As the transition from operating, to decommissioning, through to new build takes place, a flow of matching skills will be needed. At the request of employers the National Skills
Academy for Nuclear has been leading on a Nuclear Skills Passport scheme which will record peoples’ competences in a high-integrity transferable record. The Nuclear Skills Passport is being developed in partnership with Cogent as a result of evidence, through consultation with employers, that there is a clear demand to record all skills development, training and
Continuing Professional Development undertaken by all individuals working across the sector. It will give employees a clear record of achievement and the ability to develop their careers throughout the sector. A pilot is due to start in March 2008."

God alone knows what this bollocks means. Please translate into Graduate and Post Graduate Nuclear Engineers, Physicists, Health Physics, and Civil Engineers. Please also tell us who will do the training, against a background of closing University Chenistry, Physics and Science facilities. Apparently The National Skills Academy for Nuclear has selected the Universities of Central Lancashire and Portsmouth to jointly develop and deliver the leading-edge foundation degrees that are needed by the nuclear sector to support job progression opportunities.

Apparently ..."The Nuclear Academy is a brand new facility to be built on the Lillyhall
Industrial Estate in West Cumbria - this £19 MN development cut the first sod on March 9th 2008. The facility will be a dedicated centre of excellence and innovation. It will provide a wide range of education and training facilities alongside business supports service as a lead delivery centre of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear." The Chief Executive is Jean Llewellyn seconded from the North West Regional Development Agency..er ... following a rigorous recruitment process.

The NWRDA Magazine for January 2008 Issue 14 page 30 described Jean Llewelyn .....

"She has had a versatile career having spent 12 years in Higher and Further Education including lecturing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She graduated in Hospitality Management and has managed hotels in Scotland, England and Italy as well as spending five years as an AA Hotel Inspector." She also has been on the Board of The Hotel and Catering International Management Association, and St George’s Primary School Board of Governors.

We have no desire to be rude to Jean Llewelyn, with all her expertise in hotels she may be able to clean rooms, and knock up a full English Breakfast, but to be honest a leader of such a key "Centre of Excellence" might better be filled by someone with some slight knowledge of the nuclear power plant construction and with some proven level of academic and commercial practical expertise.

Again there is no wish to belittle those academic powerhouses of the Universities of Central Lancashire and Portsmouth but one doesn't unhesitatingly place them at the centre of engineering expertise or a profound understanding of nuclear physics, energy conversion, power generation or even civil engineering... whichsome of our more ancient Universities have.

As it has take damn near 20 years to build a large shed at Heathrow which merely houses a few conveyors, trucks with a few posh shops and some smart IT , the chances that the UK are going to find the people to help assess, purchase, control, monitor, evaluate, assist in design and development, then run and monitor such critical bits of kit ... safely , leaves us with a bitter chill.

This is regrettably not a joking matter. The safety and security of our energy supplies rely on decisions being made now.

PS Keep an eye out for Julia Pyke who is partner at blue chip Solicitors Herbert Smith LLP and is involved in advising EDF on their plans for nuclear new build in the UK... whose head of PR happens by chance to be Gormless Gordon's bro.

PPS : We previously mentioned the 'Public Report on the Generic Design Assessment of New Nuclear Reactor Designs - Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd ACR-1000 Nuclear Reactor', March 2008 HSE's report setting out the conclusions of its initial assessment (overview of fundamental acceptability) of the ACR-1000 nuclear reactor. see PDF is now out of date as they have withdrawn from the opportunity to supply citing that they wish ..." to concentrate on opportunities in the Canadian market."

Leaving the field to the remaining 3 ..Areva/EDF UK EPR - GE-Hitachi ESBWR - Westinghouse AP1000 although the German power Utility Eon have said they have selected Areva's 1600 MWe European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) as its exclusive design choice for any UK nuclear power plants.

Crowd Control measures- one more brick in the wall

The development of a centrally controlled Orwellian society, surveilled, monitored, photographed, recorded, coralled endlesly and continuously is here.

This is a twin track policy :

1. By top down legislation , limiting freedoms, introducing penalties, levied by an increasing and myriad range of state controlled agencies and their officers .

2. Bottom up methods of crowd control and psyops , by selecting the message, concentrating and massaging the message and criminalising the dissident, re-inforces what the government wants you all to hear and see daily.

Spy Blog is an essential source of this endless wave of legislation and petifogging controls. 2 recent posts that mustn't be missed ....


Gormless Gorden the beleaguered and boxed in Leader announced a slew of new legilsation in a Queen's Speech of his own - the Policing and Crime Reduction Bill was announced - hourse later sneakily amended to remove all references to Sir Clive Booth's police pay review .

The amendment (Amendment to Preparing Britain for the Future - The Government's Draft Legislative Programme 2008-09 Cm 7372 ) was were for crass and inexcusable typos - evidence of undue haste in dafting end publishing, but also it appears a removal of references to Sir Clive Booth's police Pay review.

As an after thought it adds that the new Bill will include - whenever they get round to producing it ... New strategies on crime, drugs, anti-social behaviour, alcohol, police leadership, efficiency and productivity - certainly required in face of the total failure of the policies they have been oursing for 10 years. Also as some form of sick joke is the expected C"ompletion of Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s Independent Review of Policing" - this is the copper whose officers destroyed evidence, told lies , paid state employees to bomb, maim, kill, murder, injure and he couldn't remeber anything about it.

3 days earlier Spy Blog had noted the blow up sex doll , Hazel Blears who sits perkily on the Front Bench has produced a toxic report from the home of Common Purpose - what used to be John Prescott's Deputy PM's Office, bu tGod alone knows what it is called now but the website address is www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk

Hazel Blears and Sergeant Flanderka - "tension monitoring" i.e. snooping on local communities Which relates to a PDF file "Guidance for local authorities on community cohesion contingency planning and tension monitoring " available here

In a forward under the signature of Parmjit Dhanda MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State this makes the claim that ...

It is therefore essential we begin to develop the skills within our communities to recognise, name, manage and resolve conflicts that may arise in the process of community change in order we move towards cohesive communities.

This guide seeks to help those at the sharp end of delivering cohesion to use information collated in a way that helps identify when conflict is likely, and then develop the capacity to create the basket of skills, networks and tools required to prevent it.

i.e Straight out of the Common Purpose Phrase book of concrete obscurantism

Spy Blog points out a significant section ...

37. The most effective way to do this is through establishing a multi-agency tension monitoring group, led by an officer/s from the local authority and/or the local police force. This should include key partners from the statutory sector (e.g. housing, community safety, education, fire service, health, probation/youth offending team, community workers, neighbourhood wardens and police community support officers, National Asylum Support Service), and relevant representatives from the voluntary, community and faith sectors.

The sort of data which Hazel Blears wants to collect and share see page 18 :

• quantitative data (eg police crime statistics and intelligence reports)
• qualitative community intelligence from neighbourhood wardens,
community workers, casework by local councillors and feedback from local
community meetings and organisations
• racially or religiously motivated offences or incidents
• details of new arrivals, refugees and asylum seekers, and Gypsy and Traveller
communities in the local area
• gang and turf conflicts
• neighbour disputes
• complaints of noise nuisance
• examples of poor community/local authority relations, poor community/
police relations/low levels of trust in local politicians
• surveys of community views on reassurance, cohesion and safety matters
• state of local economic activity (decline or improvement)
• financial and social investment in the area
• demand for housing and condition of the local housing stock
• plans for renewal and the sustainability of planned or actual improvements
• political extremism
• media reports.

What caught our eye was a section on "Working with the media"

e.g On Page 39 - Middlesbrough Council

The council has close links to the editor of the Evening Gazette, the main local newspaper, who also sits on the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP). This helps to ensure that press and media related issues are considered in cohesion contingency planning.

On Page 40 - Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council

The Berwick Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP) is working with the local press/media to vet stories involving migrant workers from Eastern Europe and Portugal employed in the food processing and agricultural sectors to prevent stigmatisation.

They even have a nifty pamphlet - available only to those signed in to the Ministry of Truth's website

Working withthe media
I&DeA Toolkit: Building a relationship with the media
www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=81965

PS : re Vetting stories on migrant workers might be the reason that the story of the success of the GLA recently in Scotland and available here Wednesday, May 07, 2008 GLA crackdown on supermarket suppliers of daffodils received no Press coverage in Scotland and a Google search shows that only the BBC and the Times covered it.

Just to remind readers of the offences that the Gangmaster Mr Jonathan Beckson, Director of Timberland Homes Ltd, trading as Timberland Homes Recruitment committed -

GLA inspectors uncovered a lengthy series of offences ;
• A threatening letter to workers stating that they were not free to leave before the end of the contract without paying £700, and if they did not have the money this would be recovered from the workers or their families in their home country.

• Timberland were subcontracting workers from an unlicensed Polish gangmaster

• Some workers stated that they received £24 for a nine hour day

• Workers received 4p per bunch of flowers picked

• No timesheets were used, so pay could not be accurately recorded

• Scottish Agricultural Minimum Wage was not being paid

• VOSA had issued prohibition notices on six Timberland minibuses in Cornwall and Timberland flouted the law by transporting the workers to Scotland in these vehicles and continued to use these minibuses for transportation of workers there on a daily basis

• Grampian and Tayside Police Forces took combined action regarding the use of the minibuses, forcing the operator to reduce seating capacity due to their ‘unlicensed’ status. Reports regarding the vehicles’ use have been submitted to Scottish Procurators’ Fiscal regarding consideration of prosecution of the firm

• Workers did not give their consent for transport and accommodation deductions

• Workers were charged for the protective clothing needed to carry out the job

• Six to eight workers shared rooms in converted farm buildings that were not licensed as houses of multiple occupation

• There were not enough beds for the 43 workers and only 4 toilets between them.

• The Kitchen facilities were poor and used bedding and laundry was kept in the cooking area thus creating a serious hygiene and fire hazard

• Tayside Fire and Rescue inspected the accommodation at the request of the GLA and found the premises to be unsatisfactory and issued a report stating that it should be rectified without delay.

The GLA is passing the information on this case to the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC).

Evidently a story worth vetting as the 7Mn bunches of daffodils they picked, ended up on the shelves at Tesco's etc.,

FOOTNOTE : Mc cain ttled through his ideals for his first (?) term in office , all that he and the nation wants, without a word of how to acheive it. Which is a bit like Gormless Gordon's ueens speech .. and as a blogger commenting on McCain's lofty ideals remarked. HOPE IS NOT A PLAN

Gemma Garrett : A Beauty amongst the Beasts

Busty Belfast born 26 year old Miss UK AKA Gemma Garrett gets Lord Patel's vote on Thursday to replace old Vinegar Lil in Crew and Nantwich .

A little known fact which Lord Patel is privy to, is that glamorous Gemma acted as Sienna Millar’s body double in the film Layer Cake - who can forget the epic and unforgettable sequence with Daniel Craig on the bed to the backing of the Stone's Gimme Shelter ?

Abalone smuggling - another record food price

Abalone is a shellfish which is a prized dish in China, where it is alleged to have aphrodisiac properties. Lord Patel has eaten it once, in 1985. It has all the taste of, and texture of a rubber door stop. It also resulted in a bout of explosive and involuntary diarrohhea in a crowded lift of the Mandarin Hotel which Lord Patel and his fellow lift travellers will not soon or easily forget.

Smuggling, of what is now a protected species from the Cape in South Africa has become a major source of income of Chinese Triads and has almost, and will soon lead to it's total extinction. here are five species of abalone endemic to South Africa, but only one, Haliotis midae L , is of any commercial value. Known in South Africa as perlemoen= mother of pearl. It is a large marine snail with a shell length of up to 230mm that lives in shallow water and takes seven to nine years to mature.

In a fascinating Oil Drum post on the subject of oil depletion - whale oil and it's accompanying fashion product, whale bone for ladies corsets a correspondent (Barrett 808) introduced a graph of the price of the product.

He laments that this looks like the typical exponential increase in price, followed by extinction and demand destruction. The history of the smuggling trade mixture of the weakening rand, the presence of Chinese organised crime, porous borders, post indpendence poitcs and the growth of thedrug trade are major factors more here.

South African Police are still hauling in poachers.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair due on trial in the Hague

David Halpin is a 68 year old retired orthopaedic surgeon who was a consultant at Torbay hospital and the Princess Elizabeth orthopaedic hospital in Exeter, Devon.

He has a website which anyone interested in the plight of the Palestinian population of Gaza would visit with benefit.

Here is an article he first published on May 1st 2008 , reproduced in it's entirety from his site. Copyright © 2000-2008 Redress Information & Analysis.All rights reserved.

Please note, this article contains graphic images which some may find upsetting.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair due on trial in the Hague

On the same day the BBC reported that former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was to go on trial after five years in prison over the deaths of a group of Baghdad merchants in 1992, it was rumoured the former prime minister of Britain will be indicted for crimes against humanity. The list of charges is long and not confined to the many alleged crimes in Iraq. Mr Blair's whereabouts are uncertain; he has been sighted occasionally in occupied East Jerusalem where he is acting as "peace" envoy for the "Quartet". Most recently, he has been facilitating industrial zones for the employment of Palestinians and for the removal of a few of the over 500 Israeli Occupation Force roadblocks.

The charge list includes:

Breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention from the time he became prime minister in 1997 until March 2003 during whichtime draconian sanctions were being applied to the civilian population of Iraq. These sanctions prompted the resignation of Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck who served as assistant secretaries-general of the UN. The former stated that the effect of those sanctions was genocidal. It was established that there was an excess mortality of babies and children of at least 500,000 between 1992 and 2003. This had to do with foul water, poor nutrition and deteriorating medical services, all of which were satisfactory before the sanctions took hold.

Conspiracy to join with another power in aggressive war, the supreme international war crime, contrary to the Nuremberg Rules and the provisions of the Charter of the United Nation. This was first made public when he joined Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America, and Britain for bloodied steaks over a barbecue at Crawford Ranch in April 2002.

High treason (betrayal of one's country, sovereign or government) in manufacturing a case for war, the central one of which was the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq. This in itself gave no grounds because the possession of such was no basis for a military assault on a sovereign country. Three aggressive nations, the US, UK and Israel, have held weapons of mass destruction for decades; no attempt has been made to disarm them. The grounds for UK military action against Iraq changed as the unlawful operation proceeded under the guise of liberation of the people and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The part played by the ?sofa cabinet?, three of whom were unelected, in promulgating a war fought on behalf of Her Majesty is being minutely examined by law officers. One such cabinet member, Mr Charles Powell, recently stated on BBC TV that the aim of the war was the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. He would know that was an illegal aim. Ann Clywd MP was appointed Mr Blair's human rights envoy in Iraq. She has continuously claimed a virtuous aim ... [but the fact is that] at least a million Iraqis have been killed, about 40 per cent of whom will have been children. Using a conservative ratio, at least two million will have been maimed.

Mr Blair is charged with a litany of war crimes that followed the invasion, one of which is the failure of the "coalition of the willing" to halt the further deterioration in the quality and quantity of medical services in Iraq which had already worsened during the 12 years of sanctions. Another obligation of an occupier is to maintain security for the populace. The very opposite happened. Disbanding the Iraqi army and other Baathist structures was central to the violent chaos which followed the invasion. Protecting the heritage of a country is another obligation of an occupier in international law. Mr Blair failed as leader to meet these and he is so charged.

The general charges in this indictment are followed by an annex which details names in which there has been death or extreme injury.

The charges also include collusion in a military and political coalition which has used banned weapons. The use of white phosphorus at Fallujah by the US was admitted. Armour-penetrating tank and cannon shells, as well as "bunker busting" bombs and missiles, have used depleted uranium. Uranium U238 is dispersed widely as a very fine dust; it has been detected as far away as the UK. Iraqi doctors claim that there have been dramatic rises in grotesque deformities in babies born prematurely, in leukaemia and in other malignancies.

The list of charges includes the case of Ali Abbas, then 12 years of age and formerly of the village of Zafaraniya, which is 30 miles from Baghdad, and his deceased family: his mother who was six months pregnant, his father, brother and at least 10 other relatives. It has been reported that, just after midnight on 30 March 2003 and 10 days into "Operation Iraqi Freedom", a weapon or two weapons exploded.

We had all gone to bed and there was this loud noise and smoke. I felt very scared and I was in much pain. I kept shouting for my mother. I did not know at the time what had happened to her.

A photograph taken in hospital in Baghdad shows that Ali was burned across his trunk and that his hands and forearms were incinerated. His head, neck, abdomen and legs were unblemished. Examination of this photograph shows this boy was subjected to the most intense radiated heat ? not contact heat.

It seems likely that his head and lower half were screened from the source of this radiation by a window aperture or similar, given the rectangular pattern of the thermal injuries. The weapon that caused such rapid incineration is unknown. It certainly was not a thermobaric weapon as used currently in Iraq and Gaza. Uranium weapons give rise to a fireball as the dust ignites. This can melt steel but there are no photographs of human victims of such attacks which match the incineration of the arms of Ali Abbas, although these weapons have been used frequently ? both in the Gulf War and in the ongoing Iraq War. The clandestine use of a small tactical nuclear weapon cannot not be ruled out.


The authorities will require that Ali Abbas comes to the Hague to give evidence. However, he has not been able to leave Baghdad since last summer. He has of course required someone else to attend to his every toilet need and to his dressing. An uncle provided that for him whilst he grew from boy to man at the private boys school in London and where he excelled scholastically. Another uncle took over last summer but a visa has not been forthcoming from the UK.

The US named Tariq Aziz the Eight of Spades, thus coming 43rd in the United States' set of 55 playing cards. His trial for involvement in the hanging of 40 alleged racketeers started on 29 April under a Kurdish judge and a military occupation.

The central charge against Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is that he has caused the death of thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians, the maiming of many more and the displacement of over four million people. Unlike the treatment of those humans, his hearing will be fair.

It is understood that he will be able to receive a Catholic priest in the cell which was formerly occupied by Slobodan Milosevic. The prison chaplain will encourage further study of ?faith?, which with globalization were the topics of Mr Blair's address in Westminster Cathedral. The commander-in-chief of the USA spoke of the "sanctity of life" when he was receiving the Pontiff in Washington recently. This principle will be applied to Anthony Charles Lynton Blair but probably not to the deputy prime minister of Iraq.

If further interested - Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign Meeting, Friends Meeting House, June 6th 7.30pm more details here Al- Nakba - 60 years of Zionism remembered

Sir Ian Blair lies to Parliament (again) Jacqui Smith lies to DailyMail, Max Mosley the jihadist ? Joining the Dots in the War on Counter Terrorism

At 11.06 am on the morning of April 22nd 2008 the House of Commons Committee considering the Counter terrorism Bill welcomed as witnesses Sir Ian Blair Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Bob Quick, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, with responsibility for counter-terrorism. Bob was of copurse also chairman of the ACPO-TAM committee having replaced the previous occupant "Randy" Andy Hayman who left in rather hurrid circumstances. See Dec 10th 2007 Just Imagine , Andy Hayman CBE was in charge of terrism - and de Menezes murder - what a wanker see also "Randy" Andy - Sex in the City suffering from what is increasingly known as Chief Constable Syndrome, a deeply felt urge to shag the staff, then promote them and also fiddle expenses, see also Randy Andy Hayman and the luscious female IPCC textee and phone sex enthusiast

The Committee was considering the proposition to extend the period of detention without charge from 28 to 42 days.

Q 9 Martin Salter: Once again, Mr. Bercow, I will obey your strictures, but it is probably helpful if you ask us to be pithy in a pithy manner—that is me done, now.

I have three quick questions for Sir Ian Blair and Mr. Quick. I know that you put some of this evidence in front of the Select Committee on Home Affairs a few months ago, but, for the benefit of the Committee, could you indicate how many serious terrorist plots the police and the security services have disrupted since the London bombings of 7/7?

Sir Ian Blair: I will stretch to something like 12, but where would you get to, Bob?

Bob Quick: I am still being briefed on the very complex history to fighting terrorism, but my understanding is in the order of about 15 occasions. On some very recent occasions we have been able to disrupt terrorism by some sophisticated and unusual methods. That is what we do. We are constantly seeking opportunities to disrupt. That is part of a multi-pronged attack on terrorist activity.

Martin Salter persisted to discover how serious such terrorist plots were in terms of the potential loss of life ..

Q 10 Martin Salter: Without compromising, allowing me to pry or giving aid to people who would wish to do us harm, could you indicate to the Committee how many of those 12 to 15 serious plots would, had they been successful, have resulted in a loss of life in excess of 100?

Sir Ian Blair: If you had asked about loss of life, I would be reasonably comfortable, but to put a figure of 100—

Martin Salter: Significant loss of life.

Sir Ian Blair: I would have thought that most of those incidents would have resulted in that.

Which suggests that Sir Ian Blair had a sufficient grasp of the plots to which he referred to arrive at such a detaild response.

How curious then that in the Sunday Times on May 4th David Leppard reported that ..

"Scotland Yard said Blair accepted he had made a mistake. His office had contacted the committee’s clerk to clarify the error as soon as it became known.

It said: “Any suggestions that the commissioner or assistant commissioner Bob Quick deliberately misled the committee whilst giving evidence on April 22 is completely wrong. A corrective statement was issued to the Press Association.”

June 10 or 11 has been identified as the crunch time for the Counter Terrorism Bill. The Herald today quotes the Prime Minister's spokesman, asked if the UK Government was preparing the ground for a tactical retreat, insisted: "There can be no question of any compromise on 42 days."
They also add..."While the police are backing the UK Government, other forces are set against it, including Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the Conservatives, LibDems and Nationalists. On Wednesday, Westminster's Joint Committee on Human Rights, made up of MPs and peers, said an extended detention limit was "unnecessary".

We should not forget the golden days of terror plot guessing when the fragrant, charming and beguilingly beautiful Eliza Manningham-Buller,(Now Baroness) the director general of MI5, (now exposed as the grisly lash wielding nazi tormentor of Max Mosley in today's papers) warned recently as last February that there were more than 1,600 "identified individuals" actively engaged in plotting terrorist attacks. There were 200 known networks involved in at least 30 terrorist plots. Daily Telegraph (Information leaked from a private lecture given at London University in November 2006.)

Oddly enough on April 14th 2008 (8 days before the Ian'n'Bob show at Westminster) the Daily Mail 14th April 2008 had the headline Terror risk is still severe warns Jacqui Smith in effort to drum up support for tighter detention laws which lead a story that commenced "The threat of a terror attack in Britain is "severe" and "growing", the Home Secretary declared yesterday. Jacqui Smith said that police and security services were monitoring 2,000 individual fanatics, 200 terror networks and 30 plots. " almost identuical to what Miss Whiplash said a year earlier.

Perhaps we should all be grateful that Sir Ian has managed to get the number of "plots" down from 30 to only 6... and without extending detention without charge. Why wait 42 days ? ... maybe there is a clue in the Thought of Chair Leg lady Whiplash ...

PS Miss Whiplash will of course be remembered when asked by a House of Lords Committee about obtaining information by torture "Eliza Manningham-Buller in one of her submissions said : 'We're not going to ask, because that would make things difficult.'

PPS The Monbiot Calculus. Think of a number ... er... make it bigger.

Heparin - APP doubles prices, triples production - the fascinating life of Dr Soon-Shiong and cures for cancer and diabetes

Recalls of heparin around the world and a tainted Chinese supply of its raw ingredient are triggering a spike in prices of the blood thinner to hospitals and dialysis centers amid tight supplies.

Direct consumers are unlikely to feel the impact because heparin is cheap, costing $1 dollar per vial by most estimates. The drug is administered during dialysis and heart surgeries and therefore would be a fraction of the overall procedure's cost, hospitals say.

APP Pharmaceuticals Inc. (previously known as Abraxis BioScience ) said it will increase the price of heparin in what (they claim) amounts to 6 cents per 1000 units of heparin, or about "48 cents per dialysis treatment," the company said. APP would not disclose specific prices or future increases saying they are "proprietary" and vary by dosage and customer.

Following the withdrawal of supplies of heparin from the US market due to contamination of their Chinese supplies with low cost oversulfated chondroitin sulfate.

Subsequently APP Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ : APPX) have become the principal US supplier.

Heparin is a blood thinning agent required prior to dialysis and heart surgery and is a relatively low cost drug. It is also used to thin blood in the tiny catheters required when dealing with premature baies in IC units.

APP have now increased prices (without discolosing what they say are proprietary pricing structures) which they say amounts to about 50 cents per dialysis procedure. According to the Stanford and Fresenius Research report of May 2, 2008, the reimbursement for managed care dialysis treatment is approximately $614, with an average reimbursement per dialysis treatment of $325, taking into consideration the Medicare reimbursement rate of $237 per dialysis treatment. APP Press release.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has so far identified more than 80 deaths and more than 1,000 adverse events associated with patients in the U.S. Contaminated heparin has now been identified in the U.S. and 10 other countries and at least a dozen Chinese sources.

APP said it had been absorbing huge increases in raw materials costs last year. Now they need to raise prices this year due to increasing security of its supply chain, additional testing required by the FDA and hiring additional staff to handle new security procedures. APP say they have had to triple production to meet domestic US demand.

USA Today report that 2 major dialysis centres using APP product have seen heparin prices double since mid April. Angela Newman, vice president of Brentwood, Tennessee based Renal Advantage's 90 dialysis centers, says price have risen twice and spokeswoman Stephanie Horn of DaVita with 1,300 dialysis centers, says they have seen a similar jump in prices.

Renal Advantage can't pass increased heparin costs on because most dialysis patients are treated under government-based Medicare and heparin is included in the base rate it pays for treatments, Newman says. While she says she's glad APP stepped up production, the 100% jump is "a little extreme."

The same article also quotes APP Chairman Patrick Soon-Shiong that APP's China-sourced heparin for the USA has tested clean, thanks to a tightly controlled supply chain. Adding that Soon-Shiong says APP, a generic-drug maker, had heparin sales of about $40 million last year and revenue of $647 million. He owns more than 80% of APP's shares. They closed Thursday at $11.81, down 11%. APP said 2008 profit may be flat vs. last year. Mr SS is a man with a fascinating history in the supply of pharmaceuticals courced in China SEE FOOTNOTE

APP issued a Press release on Thursday which says ""Because of the steps that we have been taking since early 2000 to ensure a safe, traceable supply chain and are continuing to take with regard to the production of heparin, we have been able to provide a product of the highest quality standards," said Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., chairman of APP Pharmaceuticals. "

U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt said this week that , "We have put in place processes that we believe can ensure the safety of the heparin supply within the United States," but added, "We believe the system that we have for ensuring safety is a good one but completely inadequate for the future,"

He also acknowledged that the heparin scare had seen the need to change supervsory procedures."What you'll see from the United States is a substantial change in our strategy," he added, noting Washington's plans to station Food and Drug Administration inspectors in China and other countries.

Meanwhile inquisitive members of Congress are still bering blocked by the FDA who continue withholding a list of Chinese heparin suppliers requested by congressional investigators looking into problems with hepqrin. The FDA say that confidentiality agreements prevent release of the companies' names.

Members of Congress also are concerned that Chinese heparin manufacturers and their raw-material suppliers didn't fully cooperate with an FDA inspection team in February, after the problems of contaminated heparin became known.

"The FDA thinks they have it under control, but they really don't," said the congressman leading the investigation, Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). The FDA's reluctance to release the Chinese companies' names is a red flag, he said. "If I was the FDA director, I'd shut down every drug coming in from China" until they were deemed safe, he said. (WSJ10/5/08)

FOOTNOTE on the interesting career of Mr Soon Shiong

Patrick Soon Shiong was born in South Africa, his parents fled China during WWII.
Online Journal April 20th 2007. Did Abraxis BioScience instruct AstraZeneca to use illegal marketing in their quest to increase sales? By Peter Rost, M.D.

"In a February 2007 press release, Abraxis BioScience (AKA APP Paharmaceuticals) reported record revenue of $765 million in 2006 versus $521 million for 2005. They made that money selling a new version of an old cancer drug at $4,200 per dose.

That new drug is called Abraxane and it has pushed Abraxis BioScience stock from $5 in 2002 to $27 in 2007. The lofty stock price has made Abraxis CEO and Chairman, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong a billionaire; Dr. Soon-Shiong owns 84 percent of the stock, today worth about $3.8 billion. "

Peter Rost, M.D., is a former Vice President of Pfizer. He is the author of “The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.” He also writes the daily Dr. Peter Rost blog. See also Counterpoint article on the ethically confused billionaire by same author.

Feb 22nd 2008 Pathophilia APP's Soon-Shiong: No Stranger to Suspect Chinese Suppliers

In VIVO Blog Thursday, February 21, 2008
Heparin Investigation Takes an Ugly Turn for Baxter, Industry

...."Soon-Shiong has been in the news before. APP was the subject of a front page story in the New York Times in 2002 because of its relationship with the group purchasing organization Premier; that was during a time when Congress was looking into GPO practices following allegations by small device manufacturers that they were being shut out of the market.

Before that, Soon-Shiong played a part in the controversy surrounding generic launches of Bristol-Myers Squibb's paclitaxel (Taxol). APP asserted that a patent it held on a cremaphor free formulation of paclitaxel should block generics of the Bristol product. The issue briefly delayed generic launches and prompted a Federal Trade Commission inquiry. (Bristol ultimately settled a series of antitrust claims regarding its patent defense strategies for several brands; APP was never charged.)

One last thing: APP also has first-hand experience with the challenges of global supply chain management. The company acquired its injectable generic product line from Fujisawa USA in the 1990s. Shortly after the acquisition, APP had to recall injectable gentamicin due to endotoxin contamination. The culprit? A Chinese raw material supplier.

Soon-Shiong should make an interesting witness..."

Diabetes health Dr. Soon-Shiong Sued by Mylan Laboratories - Melissa Sattley1 August 1998

"Mylan Laboratories Inc. (3rd largest generic drug supplier in the world now called Mylan Inc.) has filed suit in a Los Angeles court against Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, the well publicized islet cell transplant researcher at VivoRX.

Mylan claimed that Soon-Shiong diverted some of the US$46 million it had invested for islet cell transplant research into other non-diabetes related companies which directly profited Soon-Shiong. "

(In early 1999 the case went to an arbitrator, who examined 17,000 pages of documents--and cleared Soon-Shiong of any wrongdoing but the litigation simmered for more than a year until Soon Shiong agreed to pay US$32 million for the balance of Mylan's American Bioscience shares .)

Islet Foundation May 1998 Can Dr. Soon-Shiong Perform Miracles?by Scott. M. King.

"Soon-Shiong performed the first whole pancreas transplant in 1987 at UCLA." ..."After hearing Dr. Soon-Shiong's glowing report of his work, some in the audience in Palm Springs wondered if it was a giant hoax. However, if Soon-Shiong is right, it could be a real cure for diabetes. "

"Is there any truth behind Dr. Soon-Shiong's dramatic claims of expanding human islets? Sadly, I can find no one who believes it."

Forbes 10th June 2003 , has an interesting article on Dr Soon Shiong and his apparent breakthrough on cancer treatment.


Keep an eye open for more interesting information about this very interesting man and his very interesting career. Meanwhile the results of Dr Soon-Shiong's 2 "transplants" of islet cells are .. the first, Steven Craig died at the age of 43 in 1998 , he took his own life.The second Clarissa Hooper. said that this procedure was not effective for her. She subsequently had both legs amputated, and a kidney transplant. She passed away in Livingston, Montana at the age of 47 on January 16, 2006 from heart failure.

How very odd that none of this has appeared in the mainstream press.

Typhoon production to be halted, one carrier scrapped.

The decision has been made that the third tranche of the Typhoon will not be going ahead and one of the planned aircraft carriers will be scrapped.... or at least introduction delayed ...er .... indefinitely.

This will be announced next Friday the day the Crewe and Nantwich results are announced.

There will be an intensive "review" of the SVTOL JSF for the remaining carrier.

Sell BAe (466.75) and Rolls Royce (439.25).

US Ambassador in Harare , James McGee is a fucking hypocrite. Hank Cohen revealed

Mengistu Haile Mariam was for 17 bloodthirsty years the quasi Marxist tyrannical ruler of Ethiopia whose fall followed Russian withdrawal of support in 1991. His escape was engineered by the The United States embassy in Zimbabwe which was confirmed in a statement by the then Assistant Secretary of State Herman "Hank" Cohen in 1999. Curiously Mugabe's Public relations consultants, Cohen and Woods International, Arlington,VA. comprises Herman Cohen, and James Woods, ex advisor to President George Bush. Other clients are leaders of Angola and Burkina Faso as is President Laurent Kabila of the Congo.. Cohen is also a member of the panel on Transatlantic Relations and on the Board of Advisors of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy -"Where Leaders meet" ...which is a nonprofit, activist organization dedicated to the resolution of conflicts that threaten U.S. interests.

Up to 500 000 people were killed during Mengistu's so-called red terror, according to Amnesty International. Notoriously, soldiers of the Dergue would not release a victim's body for burial until the victim's family had paid back the cost of the bullet used in killing them.

Installed in the luxury Harare suburb of Gunhill President Mugabe proudly boasted,"Both the Americans and Canadians even offered to assist financially if we could not meet the expenses of looking after Mengistu," he said. "We have not received a cent because we have not requested their assistance. He (Mengistu) helped a lot of the continent's liberation movements."

In March 2001 Mengistu and seven male relatives, all of whom fled Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, when the regime was overthrown by pro-democracy forces in 1991, had become permanent residents on the orders of John Nkomo, the home affairs minister.

Since then he has never been far behind Mugabe.

An Ethiopian court on Tuesday December 12th 2006 found Mengistu guilty in his absence of genocide plus for atrocities committed under his Marxist regime, after a 12-year trial.

At the time William Nhara, a spokesperson for President Robert Mugabe's government, said."As a comrade of our struggle, Comrade Mengistu and his government played a key and commendable role during our struggle for independence and no one can dispute that," William Nhara, a spokesperson for President Robert Mugabe's government, said.

"The judgment is an Ethiopian judgment and will not affect his status in Zimbabwe. As far as we know there is no extradiction treaty between Harare and Addis Ababa."

He planned and was responsible for the execution of Operation Murambatsvina, the controversial home-demolition exercise left at least 700 000 people homeless and affected another 2,4-million people, according to a report by United Nations special envoy Anna Tibaijuka.

After acceptance by Mugabe , menistu took control and planned everything from CIO headquarters in Harare, and was suppoerted by defence forces commander General Constantine Chiwenga, Zimbabwe National Army Commander Philip Valerio Sibanda, Air Force of Zimbabwe Commander Air Marshal Perence Shiri, CIO director general Happyton Bonyongwe, his deputy, Menard Muzariri, and director of prisons Brigadier Zimondi. The police were represented by Deputy Commissioner Godwin Matanga.

The later projec, ostenibly to rebuild dubbed "Operation Garikai / Hlalani Kuhle ", would naturally not accommodate all the displaced people and mainly benefited Zanu-PF supporters caught up in the destruction process.

All of this was a deliberate plan to reduce the population by stravation or forced exodus - it was hugely successful and reduced the population by 25%.

Now we have US Ambassador James McGee , in post for a year, awakening to the bloody reprisals of Mugabe on MDC supporters.

In 2005 the then Oxford educated (Balliol) US Ambasador Chris Dell accused Mugabe and his cronies of corruption.

Yet it was the US (undertaken by Herman "Hank" Cohen ) who inserted the evil virus of Mengistu, who is behind Mugabe's tyrannical plans... and the world's politiians and press stay silent of the role of the US.

Vietnam vet and career diplomat, James McGee doesn't have a monopoly in the role of hyprocrite but his Government have been happy to stand aside and watch how Mengistu has helped Mugabe destroy his once beautiful and productive country.

As for the sinister role of Herman "Hank" Cohen in all this ..... well for a start you won't read about him in the mainstream press or hear about him and Cohen and Woods International on TV. Apologists for bloodthirsty murderers like to keep a low profile. Know what I mean?

Mr & Mrs Saxe Coburg Gotha visit Constantinople - holiday snaps etc.,

Much has been made of the visit of HMQ to Turkey but this is nothing new or novel. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and his beautiful fiancée Princess Alexandra Christina visited and stayed in Istanbul in 1862 his trip to the Levant and Middle East from February to June, rturning on June 14th (see Illustrated London News 21st June), 623-624; 628.) In his party was Francis Bedford (1816 - 1894) an early photographer whom Queen Victoria appointed to tour the Middle East with the her son to record the trip for posterity. A little know aspect of how Royal patronage made an impact on the history and development of photography.

Bedford later published over 170 photographs taken on the tour as the grandly titled Photographic Pictures made by Mr. Francis Bedford during the Tour in the East, in which he Accompanied The Prince of Wales in 4 volumes published by Francis Day lithographers by Royal Warrant. These were exhibited at the German Gallery, Bond Street, London from July 23rd 1862 on the return of the Royal party as 10" x 12" albumen prints, see above. Bedford subsequently became a founding member of the Royal Photographic Society. For more see Holy Land Photographs and Their Worlds ,Francis Bedford and the ‘Tour in the East’ Linda Wheatley-Irving page 81 et seq . This was only the second exhibition given for one photographer , the first being H R Fenton's pictures of the Crimea war.


The British Embassy was even then in Beyoğlu and Amadeo Preziosi had a studio in Hammalbaşı Street opposite, which the royal couple visited. This had become a regualr calling point for travellers as E.H. Jerningham suggested in his ‘To and From Constantinople’ that “No one visiting Istanbul should leave without seeing Mr. Preziosi’s atelier for a perfect watercolor view of life on the [Galata] bridge. This artist, who possesses considerable talent, primarily in watercolor, has brought to life that unique Eastern color that permeates everything of the East, and in doing so has created a true souvenir of the things that most impressa traveller to Istanbul"

Amadeo Preziosi was born in Malta on 2 December 1816 and spent his childhood and youth there. His father, Count Gio François Preziosi, was a highly respected figure on the island and his title had been bestowed by King Victor Amadeu II, Duke of Sardinia and Savoy.

His father wanted him to take up the law but he studied under a then famous Maltese artist Guiseppe Hyzler and went later with his brother Leandro to study in paris. Later his wanderlust and a wish to escape his father took him to Istanbul where equipped with a British passport he had a steady and enjoyable life producing memorable street scenes, views and architectural watercolours and gouaches.

The visit of the Prince of Wales not only meant several of his works found their way into the Royal Collections but also enhanced his reputation amongst the English colony and his painting became so popular he produced 2 volumes of lithographs which are now prize items in any orientalists collection.

His painting are highly desired and today fetch handsome money at auction, in Bonham's sale on December 7th 2007 of Exploration, Travel & Topographical Pictures his watercolour "Market in the courtyard of the Mosque of Sultan Beyazid " sold for £20,400. They also have 4 lots 128- 131 in their forthcoming May 21st sale which are fairly undistinguished watercolours he must have churned out for passing travellers.

He died an untimely, unexpected and early death in 1882 when he was out hunting in Yeşilköy. In handing his gun to a servant, it slipped, fired and shot him , he died a few days later and is buried in the San Stefano Catholic Cemetery at Yeşilköy. Whilst his atelier long disappeared the garden of the mansion still exists on Teyyareci Nuri Bey Street in Yeşilköy.

Click on pictures to enlarge

Pheasant Shooting - getting ready for the annual slaughter

There is probably nothing more despicable than the braying wannabe squires who in the autumn , slaughter the semi domesticated pheasant in the name of "country sports". Probably the deepest and darkest irony is that the President of the World Wild Life Fund, Phil the Greek, Duke of Edinburgh is an enthusiastic supporter of this primitive ritual - his Sandringham Estate is an enthusiastic importer of French Red legged Partridge which is not a native bird - it provides better "sport". Which in shooting speak means the little buggers zig and zag making them harder to shoot.

Most of us only become aware of this annual festival of primitive bloodlust as the guns start to boom in the autumn, but the season has already started as the young pheasants and partriges are bred in their millions (34 Million are bred every year). Gamekeepers are also kept busy, legally trapping stoats and weasels, and often laying illegal poison baits for birds of prey.

South East Green MP Caroline Sharp has pointed out that many of these birds start life being intensively reared under conditions outlawed by EU legislation for rearing poultry.

40% of the pheasants reared annually in the UK are sourced in France as eggs, day old chicks and poults so EU wide legislation is needed or at least a swift amendment to current legislation (US sourced eggs are also favoured as they are disease free). For example a single hatchery, Hy Fly Game hatcheries near Blackpool will set 2 million eggs this year and can produce 250,000 weekly. They also set some half a million red legged partridge and claim to be the country's largest supplier. They specialise in Japanese Green cross pheasants which is "unusually wild and extremely fast on the wing" ...that " provides a fantastic bird for commercial shoots where good returns are as important as flying ability."

Companies such as Purina and Pillsbury manufacture feeds to provide an unnatural and fattening diet.

In the last few years, the slaying fields have produced so many dead birds, they prove to be unsaleable and are buried.

Of course if you are one of the neanderthals who find killing wild/ semi-domesticated birds is fun ..... for more see Thursday, September 28, 2006 BBC complicit in publicising game shooting propaganda and background information from Animal Aid

Don't have a heart attack or RTA in Southampton

From Save Bedford Hospital (AKA Barry Monk) today

Here is the text of a message sent to GPs in Southampton yesterday:

Dear Colleagues,

I have been asked to inform you urgently that Southampton University Hopital Trust is currently on ‘Black Alert’ with Ambulances queuing outside A/E and the Ambulance Service [SCAST] indicating that there is a 1.5 hour wait for even urgent requests for ambulances to be dealt with.

Clearly in this difficult situation we would request wherever possible that if measures can be taken by you to avoid hospital admission or A/E attendance for patients we would be most grateful.

I am conscious that communications of this nature are often deemed unhelpful, but I hope that you will take this circumstance into consideration, in consultation with patients and carers, in informing your clinical decisions this afternoon.

--------------

At the Royal College of Nursing annual conference on Monday 28th April , Peter Carter, the RCN's general secretary, said a poll of more than 500 frontline nurses in accident and emergency departments showed 93% felt under undue pressure from a government target to discharge or admit patients within four hours.(BBC)

Three-quarters of those polled said patients were regularly admitted to inappropriate wards to meet the target.

Greater Manchester Police - a deliberate and total failure to maintain public order

The Government introduced major changes in licensing with the Licensing Act 2003. Section 141 made it an offence to sell alcohol to a drunken person.

On 19th March this year Mark Hoban MP asked the Home Office how many prosecutions for sale of alcohol to a drunk person have been pursued in each criminal justice area in each of the last 10 years; and how many resulted in conviction.

In Greater Manchester there were no prosecutions in 2005 and 3 in 2006.

Central Manchester is a zone where public drinking is forbidden.

Yesterday, tens of thousands of football fans invaded the city centre , attracted by the provision of free entertainment and were allowed to ignore this law. The consequences for public disorder were predicted and predictable.

The Licensing Act was designed to provide the Police with powers to regulate licensees - they have totally failed in their duty to ensure public peace and order.

SOCA - Happy 2nd Birthday

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is celebrating it's second birthday and has produced a 2nd Annual Report. It received from the Home Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, the Northern Ireland Office and the Scottish Executive totals of nearly £407m in resource funding and about £45m in capital funding and has approximately 4,000 staff in post.(page 7)

Overall the impression is of an organisation absorbed in process rather than practice. The Home Secretary in her Forward says, "The social and economic harms caused by organised crime cost the UK more than £20bn a year " (Which a footnote on Page 11 says "Home Office estimate). This is further explained on Page 18 "The organised crimes that most affect the UK (drugs trafficking, organised immigration crime, fraud and firearms trafficking). Highlighting how the annual figure for serious crime of £20 Bn is hopelessly understated, the level of Carousel fraud (MITC) that has been detected is of the order of £20 Bn annually ...for several years.. see Tuesday, April 04, 2006 SOCA the UK's FBI ?

There is not a single reference in the whole of the report to Carousel fraud - although on Page 34 the rpeort says on the subject "Collaboration with Partners" -joint work with partners to build the success of the Control Strategy -"achieved. Positive engagement by partners
including ACPO, Cabinet Office, Home Office, Scottish Crime & Drugs Enforcement Agency
(SCDEA), Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(F&CO), HMRC, etc., etc., etc.,

On Page 44 we are told that the 4000 staff took delivery of 1,364 courses with a total of 11,232 attendees trained - one may set this against for example the success claimed on Page 6 ..."the issue of 46 warnings to more than 2,500 businesses throughout the UK about crime threats that might affect them, leading, for example in one case to one bank alone reporting an estimated saving of £500,000" or the Government Target or on Page 18 ..."SOCA had this year Government targets for cash forfeiture of (£5m)" . The Times was critical which has led to the SOCA boss Bill Hughes to write a letter published today which reveals that Of the 148 former police officers who have left since SOCA was formed, 46 of them retired,

At Page 46 of the 54 page report we get the information about how effort is allocated ... no mention of carousel fraud.

It would be churlish not to point to successes, but whilst there have been successful seizures of drugs, the street price is low and declining and usage increases. None of the 13 "Mr Bigs" is cooling is heels at Her Majesty's pleasure .

89 tonnes of Class A drugs were seized (0% up on 06/07), 30 tonnes of cannabis plus 60 tonnes of precursor chemicals principally in Colombia and Afghanistan - what they call "upsream operations" .More than 2,000 arrests made in the UK and around the world flowing from SOCA work including under European Arrest Warrant arrangements.

Exotically named operations are listed, curiously anonymous and generalised about "successful" operations but vague on details. Go look but here is one nice one with a fascinating moniker ..

Operation HORNBLOWER, focussed on the criminal activities of an organised crime group involved in both the international facilitation of illegal immigrants into the UK from Afghanistan and Pakistan and the exploitation of migrants once here. Outcomes from intelligence development included the identification of routes from Afghanistan used by the gang, with Greece being identified as the EU entry point. (Wow!)

A series of joint actions overseas resulted in the interdiction of some 128 illegal migrants and the
seizure of a ship. Separately, action within the UK by SOCA, supported by the BIA, resulted in the arrest of two individuals on suspicion of conspiracy to facilitate the entry of illegal immigrants and the seizure of £8,500 cash.

Slim pickings for 4,000 staff and expenditure of nearly half a billion pounds. Funky logo though.

See Daily Mail today Head of British FBI attacks 'Spanish practises of his own 'disgraceful' officers -- luvly jubbly all that overtime sarge

"The report boasts of seizures of more than 89 tonnes of Class A last year - but states only that these seizures "flowed from" SOCA's work, with no details of where in the world they took place, which countries carried out the operations, what SOCA's involvement was or what proportion of the drugs were ever destined for Britain.

Separate Government figures reveal that seizures of cocaine and heroin being smuggled into Britain have plummeted since SOCA took over the fight against drug trafficking two years ago, from a peak of 23 tonnes of cocaine seized in 2003-4 to barely a tenth of that amount last year."

Merck win appeal in Texas Vioxx case

71 yearold Leonel Garza had a prior heart attack and heart bypass surgery, smoked for nearly 30 years and died of the second heart attack after taking Vioxx for less than a month.

In April 2006 a jury in Rio Grande City, Texas, awarded $32 million to his widow from Merck the manufaturers of Vioxx. The award — $7 million for compensatory damages and $25 million for punitive damages — was subsequently reduced to about $7.75 million under Texas law limiting damages.

Yesterday a three-judge panel of the Texas 4th Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, ruling in favor of Merck. The opinion was signed by Justice Sandee Bryan Marion. "Even viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, we conclude the evidence is legally insufficient to support a finding that plaintiffs negated, with reasonable certainty, Mr. Garza's preexisting heart condition as a plausible cause of his death,"

The judges stated that Garza's family did not prove his brief use of Vioxx caused two blood clots that the family's attorneys argued triggered his heart attack. The judges also concluded the family did not provide sufficient evidence to rule out his long-standing heart disease as the cause of his fatal heart attack.

"The appellate court recognized that there was insufficient evidence supporting the jury's verdict and, accordingly, rendered a final judgment in the case in favor of Merck," said Ted Mayer of Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, outside counsel for Merck. "Today's decision reaffirms that there is simply no reliable scientific evidence that Vioxx caused Leonel Garza Sr.'s heart attack."

The Garza case was excluded from the settlement program agreed by Merck who have paid US $4.85 billion into a resolution fund to resolve state and federal myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke claims filed or tolled by Nov. 9, 2007.

After the trial, a juror admitted previously borrowing more than $12,000 from Garza's widow, Felicia, an issue that Merck also raised in its appeal, this was not mentioned in the three-page appellate court decision.

Artful Codgers Channel 4 tonight - Not to be missed

Artful Codgers - Channel 4 Thursday 15 May 2008 9pm

Not to be missed , the Greenhalgh Gang, 84-year-old George Greenhalgh, his wife ,83 year old Olive and embittered wannabe artist son Shaun, 47.

An everyday story of Bowton folk, claiming benefits in a council house with tales of cleverly constructed histories for grand art fakes sold to museums, galleries and collectors all over the world.

All three admitted to defrauding art institutions between 1989 and 2006, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conceal and transfer £410,392. Bolton Council, which paid £440,000 for the so-called Egyptian alabaster Amarna Princess a daughter of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, (pic) are supposed to be getting their money back. Stephanie Crossley, Bolton Council's culture spokeswoman, said the authority was pleased the long-running case had been concluded.

Sean got 4 years 8 months, his brother George Greenhalgh Junior, was given a six-month suspended sentence for receiving £10,000 from the sale of one of the fakes. Mother got 12 months suspended.

There were paintings by LS Lowry, (which should have deceived no one) a long-lost Barbara Hepworth sculpture, 19th-century American landscapes, a Thomas Jefferson bust, ancient Celtic jewellery, Roman silver plate and Assyrian reliefs dating from 700BC.

See - Saturday, April 21, 2007 Queen's scantily clad daughter in Lottery scandal - amazing pictures !! and Thursday, December 13, 2007 The Greenhalgh Gang - how Sotheby's was fooled