"“We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.” "


Chinese premier Wen Jiabao 12th March 2009


""We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions, and we'd like to do our best to preserve that system."


Timothy Geithner US Secretary of the Treasury, previously President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.1/3/2009

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Stop the War, Blair Must GO.Sunny Day in Manchester - which is most unlikely ?

Stop the War stopped Manchester this afternoon. In typical Manchester weather (Blue cloudless sky 120 degrees in the shade) 500,000 marched around the Labour Party Armed Camp. - It says something when a political party supplying the Government have to erect a mechanised metal zareba guarded by POLICE with sub machine guns to keep us OUT.

What have they to fear from the electorate - except DEFEAT ?

Eamonn McCann from the Derry Anti-War Coaltion, who is one of the Raytheon 9 - a group of anti-war protesters currently facing charges for occupying the Raytheon factory on 9 August 2006 during Israel's recent assault on Lebanon. He explained how Raytheon produces the cluster bombs and guided missile units used by the Israeli army against the people of Lebanon

"We will face the court not as the accused, but as the accusers of companies like Raytheon that fuel war for the sake of their profits," he said.

"We are here as part of the growing global resistance to war and imperialism - the real 'international community and the last, best hope for humankind."

As he explained, he heard the most eleoquent speech before they entered the plant. "Boys we could do this. Let's fucking do it..... So we did"


The Derry protestors decommissioned computer equipment used by Raytheon to produce software for its weapons systems. They have been charged with aggravated burglary and unlawful assembly. These are very serious offences that could mean the accused could be denied the right to trial by jury under British security legislation prevailing in the north of Ireland. (They also include Deirdre Clancy - Pit Stop Ploughshares/Anti-War Ireland Ciaron O'Reilly - Pit Stop Ploughshares

They are forbidden to communicate with each other or with anyone working for Raytheon and may not take part in any public or private anti-war meeting. This attack on the right to protest takes place under the authority of Peter Hain (the man with the tan from the can), British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and wannabe Deputy Prime Minister.

Other speakers included Nahella Ashraf, chair of Greater Manchester Stop the War Coalition, John Rees of the Stop the War Coalition, Bectu national official Anna Murray, human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, folk singer Peggy Seeger and Craig Murray, (see pic of him in full flow) the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Copyright breaker.


Some Pictures which hopefully capture the sunshine, happiness and genera 'oop North joi de vivre




There were no arrests. (pic from Al Jazeera)

Ex Viscount Stansgate AKA Tony Benn and Ex Mrs Mick Jagger AKA Bianca Jagger ask a Policeman the way to the March. (MEB Pic)

There is no Israeli Lobby

This letter appeared in The Times on Friday.

Offensive words
Sir, We condemn the comments made by Baroness Tonge in a meeting at the Liberal Democrat Party conference on Wednesday.

Baroness Tonge evoked a classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory when she said: “The pro-Israel lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips. I think they have probably got a certain grip on our party.” In addition, she repeated her past comments of sympathy for suicide bombers living in the Palestinian territories.

Two weeks ago the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism reported a disturbing rise in anti-Semitic incidents and discourse in the UK. Baroness Tonge’s remarks demonstrate the reasoning behind the report’s concerns about the creeping acceptance of anti-Jewish prejudice within mainstream politics and media. The report warned that anti-Israel discourse evolves all too quickly into anti-Semitic rhetoric. We believe that the language deployed by Baroness Tonge, as a member of the House of Lords, was irresponsible and inappropriate.(LP She was speaking at a ‘Palestine: let there be justice’ fringe meeting at the Liberal Democratic Party Conference)

Everyone has the right to disagree with all or some of the policies of the Israeli Government, as do some of the signatories of this letter. That should be a mature debate, in considered, robust and responsible political language. It should not be done by purveying myths, or by deploying offensive language.

LORD CAREY OF CLIFTON
LORD CARLILE OF BERRIEW (LD)
LORD FEARN (LD)
LORD JACOBS (LD)
BARONESS LUDFORD, MEP (LD)
LORD ARCHER OF SANDWELL (Lab)
LORD CLARK OF WINDERMERE (Lab)
BARONESS DEECH (Crossbench)
LORD FOULKES OF CUMNOCK (Lab)
LORD HARRISON (Lab)
LORD HASKEL (Lab)
LORD HOGG OF CUMBERNAULD (Lab)
LORD JANNER OF BRAUNSTONE (Lab)
LORD KALMS (C); BARONESS MILLER OF HENDON (C)
LORD MITCHELL (Lab)
BARONESS O’CATHAIN (C)
BARONESS RAMSAY OF CARTVALE (Lab)
LORD STERLING OF PLAISTOW (C)
LORD TAYLOR OF HOLBEACH (C)
LORD STEINBERG (C)
LORD TURNBERG (Lab)
LORD WEDDERBURN OF CHARLTON (Lab)
LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN (Lab)

Readers may remember that in January 2004 Jenny Tonge, then Lib Dem MP for Richmond Jenny Tonge was asked by Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy to quit his front bench as children's spokeswoman following her remarks about Palestinian suicide bombers.

The drunkard said: "Her recent remarks about suicide bombers are completely unacceptable."

Israel's ambassador Zvi Shtauber at the time told BBC News 24 he welcomed the news of her sacking.

"I understand it's a matter of free speech, but I expect her to express some sympathy for the victims of suicide bombers and not confining herself to confessing understanding for suicide bombers," he said.

"I can tell you one thing," added Dr Shtauber, "We must stand up against such remarks, which are an incitement against the state of Israel and against Jews."

The Lib Dem Conference this week passed a motion condemning Israel for using "disproportionate" force in Lebanon. The Lib Dem Friends of Israel (Prop. Gavin Stoller) decided in the interests of liberal Free speech to close down their stand in the conference exhibition hall.

One wonders what their response would have been to Sulayman Munir of Amicus telling the TUC a week earlier that "Israel is an apartheid state. It treats Palestinians like second class citizens."

There was news also that the new Israeli Ambassador Zvi Heifetz, declined an invitation to the conference after discovering Sir Menzies Campbell had written a letter to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Lib-Dem party calling for an arms embargo against Israel.

Totally Jewish.com reported the following comments....

Board of Deputies Chief Executive Jon Benjamin : “We’re concerned by the words about the ‘pro-Israel lobby’, about the control of finance and the media. Her comments could almost have been a textbook example of the discourse the Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism seized upon as giving rise to ill-feeling against Jews.”

Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, added: “Conspiracy theories of this nature provide a breeding ground for the politics of hatred. The Liberal Democrat leadership must take action.”

Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel Chairman Monroe Palmer said he had complained to the party’s leadership. He added: “The use of ‘pro-Israel lobby’ is a synonym of ‘Jew’. I thought this attitude went out with the exposure of the tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

LDFriends of Israel spokesman Gavin Stollar said Tonge’s “position needs to be seriously reviewed”.

Jonny Lipczer, Director of Mizrachi, the religious Zionist organisation, said: “Jenny Tonge’s latest anti-Zionist outburst, coupled with comments made by her Liberal Democrat colleagues, makes me question why any Jew would want to vote for her party.”

Those interested in Mr Johnny Lipczer's politics might like to go to this BBC page where he (who evidently enjoys the limelight) and read what his political views are...."Jonny Lipczer, from Edgware, said: "I'm a Cameron voter."



Some readers may also recall
Chris Davies MEP, who was also at the meeting at which Jenny Tonge spoke, was stripped of the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in Europe after he told a Jewish News reader that he would expose ‘Jewish influence over Western governments’.

Mr Peter Tuffley

Mr Peter Tuffley, studied politics at Liverpool University and had worked as a Regional officer for the Labour Party for 13 months. He had stood for the Liverpool Council in 2003 for Croxteth unsuccessfully. Peter had worked as an aide of Police Minister Hazel Blears, running her constituency office between 2001 and 2004 before taking up his North West post. BBC News

On March 21st 2005 he was arrested for allegedly abducting a 13-year-old boy he met on the Internet, who spent the night at his ground floor flat in in Little Parkfield Road, near Lark Lane, Aigburth.

At the time a spokesman for Greater Manchester Police confirmed "that a man of 27 had been arrested in the Liverpool area under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 concerning the grooming of a child for sexual purposes."

He said: "A man has been arrested and his computer was taken away for examination. We will now begin the process of video interviewing the boy in question. This is expected to take at least a week."

Mr Tuffley, who now lives at Pipersfield, Ridgewood, East Sussex, just in time for the Labour Party Conference, appeared in Bolton Crown Court this week. On 12 March,2005 Mr Tuffley is alleged to have picked the boy up from school, before driving him driving back to his Liverpool flat. Police were alerted by the boy's parents after he left a note saying he was with "Peter", the court was told.

They watched videos then got into bed together, the court heard. The boy said they kissed and cuddled.

Mr Geoff Whelan prosecuting said: "The key issue is age. There is no doubt Boy A (who lived in Bolton) was a willing participant in whatever activity took place. They were both were registered members of a website chat room called Face Party.

"The problem for the defendant is Boy A was a 13-year-old boy. A child in the eye's of the law. There is ample evidence the defendant knew his age." BBC News

Tuffley denies charges of grooming over the internet, child abduction and sexual activity with a child. He was found guilty on FRiday SEptember 28th of abducting a 13-year-old boy from Bolton he had "groomed" on the internet.

Tuffley was bailed until December 1 for sentence at Bolton Crown Court for which he faces up to ten years imprisonment. He may also be prosecuted on a further charge of possessing child pornography on his home computer.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Our Once and Future King

Lord Patel has been criticised for alluding to the childish jape when The Queen's grandson dressed up in Nazi uniform for a fancy dress party. Harry has apologised for this juvenile behaviour and now wears the rather smart dress uniform of the Queen's Household Cavalry Blues and Royals who defend Windsor Castle.

The adjoining happy snap appeared in newspapers overseas (this was in China) of him with a young lady dressed as Hitler has not received the public attention that some feel it deserves.

HMG reliance on Private Security costs soar to over £150 Mn.

Channel 4 have chivvied the Foreign Office using FOI procedures into detailing the costs of Private Security Firms (PSE's) for protecting their officials in Iraq and Afghanistan > £150 MN so far. A role, which as a taxpayer, is what I thought (evidently mistakenly), we had the Armed Forces to perform.

In Iraq, the amount the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has paid out for the services of these firms has risen from £19,121,598 in 2003/4; to £47,818,682 in 2005/6.

The most recent figures for Afghanistan show a 400% (ish) increase from £2,085,000 in 2004/05; to £8,543,000 in 2005/6.

4 firms benefit from this FO largesse : Control Risks Group, ArmorGroup, Kroll Security Group and Edinburgh Risk Security Management (ERSM).

The US company, ArmorGroup, was also paid for providing police advisors £3,700,172 in 2004/5 which more than doubled to £8,417,242 in 2005/6... the funds for this came from a separate Gubment pocket called Global Conflict Prevention Pool (Iraq Strategy). Considering the mayhem and general murder that dawn discloses every day in Baghdad one is left to wonder how well this money is allocated or used.

The original document from the FO is available here and is (Please take notice Craig Murray) "protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. " according to Timothy Less, Conflict Issues Group, Room w.3.132, FCO

Suggestions that the Household Cavalry, the Blue and Royals, (recently joined by the pubescent Royal offspring see pic of Prince Hal (note no Swastikas)) who do such a splendid job of protecting the sovereign could usefully be employed doing this job of protecting HMG 's Ambassadorial staff in Baghdad (and the new Consul in Kirkuk, let us not forget as Kurdistan approaches nationhood) and Kabul should perhaps be addressed to him.

Whilst the horses might seem a bit of an anachronism on today's hi-tech battelefield, if Taliban marksmanship with their trusty, rusty jezreel proves too effctive they could at least be eaten by the beleaguered forces in Helmand who seem to have problems getting a square meal these days.

Fray Bentos Pulp Mill to be re-located in Uruguay

Patricia Avila of Reuters Alertnet reports from Montevideo, Uruguay ,that Juan Luis Arregui, President of Spain's ENCE, who were to build a pulp mill at Fray Bentos (with the help of World Bank funds) near a plant built by a Finnish Consortium Botnia will move the location of the new plant but no firm plans have been announced.

He admitted that Fray Bentos, a town on the Uruguay River that divides Argentina and Uruguay , does not have enough infrastructure to support the two massive plants.

Arregui said the decision was not related to the environmental conflicts that had arisen, although he had said earlier that the company had halted progress on the plant until the differences with Argentina were resolved.

Relations between Uruguay and Argentina have been strained by the project, which represents the biggest private investment ever in Uruguay.The dispute was finally resolved by the United Nations' highest court, which rejected Argentina's request to suspend conbstruction of both plants.

A strike had halted Botnia's construction works as local workers opposed a plan by the Finnish firm to contract hundreds of building workers from Eastern Europe.

ENCE said on Wednesday it had laid off 40 of its administrative personnel out of a total of 60, in Montevideo, but Arregui said the company was not planning to leave Uruguay where they own massive Eucalyptus plantations.

"It has never crossed our mind to leave Uruguay. The layoffs announced are part of a restructuring," Arregui said.

Of course if the plant was moved to Argentina, their objections would probably dissolve, but as this would involve transporting Uruguayan timber across the river it would be economic nonsense.

Lord Patel wrote about the whole history of this last week. Globalisation - a winning solution in Uruguay. (Pic Brazilian Eucalyptus plantations)

Fuel from the Sun


Farming the World's Energy by Christian Wüst, a Der Spiegel special report, is an excellent crash course in the practicalities of growing crops to directly convert solar energy to produce energy useful liquids - rapeseed, corn etc. and the use of raw biomass as an energy feedstock, straw, woodchip etc., in Europe.

A recommended read.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Musharraf to Bush - Keep your tanks off my lawn.

President Parvez Musharraf is now in Washington and is due to meet President George W. Bush in the White House tomorow. It promises to be an interesting meeting especially as the President has just said that the US would bomb Pakistan if they knew Osama bin Laden was there.

Musharraf, in an interview with CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes" due to be aired on Sunday, said at the time of 9/11, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, signatory of the neo con's agenda spoke to Musharraf's intelligence director.

"The intelligence director told me that (Richard Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,'"

The Pakistani leader, whose remarks were distributed to the media by CBS, said he reacted to the threat in a responsible way. "One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that's what I did," Musharraf said.

Musharraf said some demands made by the United States were "ludicrous," including one insisting he suppress domestic expression of support for terrorism against the United States.

Against these disclosures it is interesting to read what Richard Armitage, now a private citizen and Director of Philips Conoco, has recently written...

Richard Armitage wrote in an article in the New York Times on August 20th 2006 with Kara L Bue (a deputy assistant secretary of state from 2003 to 2005, and the slip of a girl in a red 2 pc. suit in the picture (c) US State Dept) "Keep Pakistan on Our Side"


"On Sept. 12, 2001, the United States gave Pakistan a stark choice — be with us or against us. Understanding the dangers and opportunities of this choice, President Pervez Musharraf chose to stand with America, and since then he has taken tremendous steps to fight Islamic extremists and move Pakistan toward enlightened moderation."


Richard Armitage was one of the main architects behind US covert support to the Mujahedin and the "militant Islamic base," both during the Afghan-Soviet war as well as in its aftermath.

UPDATE Friday 22nd September 2006

Richard Armitage interviewed on BBC 4 Radio "PM" program denied ever sasying any such thing, but doesn't know how what he said was reported to President Musharrif. Dubya apparently (he says) only discovered this threat when he read about it in the papers - which is trange because they must be including political items on the Sports Pages of the papers in Washington.

Mrs Elin Woods 28/11/2003

Look

The Wide Awakes looking for recruits.

The top three from a trawl through Google's News with the search term "The Wide Awakes" produces these today.... Interesting bunch.

No 1 on the list

Big Dog spends a lot of time pushing Conservative issues and preparing for his radio show at Wide Awakes Radio.
Blogcritics.org
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/21/101055.php
For Ben Cardin, It's All About The Race

No 2 on the List

Several Contributors -Jay, Gribbit, Kender, Bob, ArrMatey, JCB, Bluto, Justin, Ian, Glib Fortuna, Jim.

Stop the ACLU
http://stoptheaclu.com/archives/2006/09/17/cha-cha-cha-changes-at-gribbit-live/
Beating them with their own Sickle and Hammer!

No 3 on the List

Jay777
The Wide Awakes
http://thewideawakes.org/archives/2006/09/21/aclu-says-providing-free-ids-for-voters-is-a-poll-tax/
ACLU Says Providing Free I.D.’s For Voters Is A Poll Tax?

Who are looking for like minded rednecks and fascists to help them spread their poisonous xenophobic creed....
If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

CIA pilots identified in German citizens rendition by German Press and TV

Journalists from German TV station ARD program "Panorama," have publicised the identities of three alleged CIA pilots, US citizens who live in North Carolina, who were involved in the kidnap of German citizen Khaled el-Masri (Masr), who was imprisoned in Afghanistan.

CIA agents allegedly used the Spanish island of Majorca as a hub between flights presumably organized to abduct and transport terrorist suspects in Europe, Africa and Afghanistan.Three of the pilots apparently used the false names Eric Fain, James Fairing and Kirk James Bird when staying at a hotel on the island. Spanish authorities were able to identify the three, because personnel at the hotel where they stayed on Mallorca made photocopies of their passports containing their pictures.

All three are said to have "Worked" for the North Carolina-based Aero Contractors company which iit has been claimed many times is a CIA front organisation.

One of those rendition flights landed in Macedonia. There, CIA agents allegedly beat and abducted German citizen Khaled el-Masri -- who was on vacation -- on Jan. 23, 2004 and took him to a US-run prison in Afghanistan. They also imprisoned an Ethiopian man named Binyam Mohamed. Both of them, the agents claimed, had connections to the terrorist organization al Qaeda.

El-Masri was not released until five months later - being kicked out of a car on a deserted Albanian road. During that time, CIA specialists apparently tried to break the will of the prisoners by playing music so loud, that one of his eardrums burst, el-Masri said. It is of interest that the interrogators repeatedly asked him about a group of Islamic extremists in Neu-Ulm and about Egyptian-born German Reda Seyam.

The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Spanish police were able to track some of the CIA's pilots who are believed to have stayed in normal hotels on Mallorca. They registered under aliases and used diplomats' passports.Süddeutsche Zeitung wondered why German legal authorities have been so hesitant about pursuing the matter.

"If the suspects involved were from Libya, then prosecutors would have ordered their arrest a long time ago," Green party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele told the paper.

Spanish police discovered the names of the suspects in spring 2005. A Spanish journalist passed on the information to el-Masri's attorney, Manfred Gnjidic, who turned the list over to German prosecutors in December 2005, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.

El-Masri's attorney, has requested that German prosecuting attorneys start preliminary proceedings against the alleged kidnappers now that their identities are known. The Munich-based State prosecutor responsible for the case, August Stern, claims more information was necessary before legal action could begin.Prosecutor August Stern of Munich said he had requested information to no avail from Macedonia, Albania and the United States. Without their help, he could not solve the case.

El-Masri sued former CIA chief (FT story) George Tenet and other officials, but the case was dismissed by a US court in May. It ruled that a trail could compromise US security by disclosing secret information but added that if his story were true, el-Masri was entitled to "a remedy" from the US administration. (He was denied entry to the US)

It has been reported in Berliner Zeitung were told by unnamed German security official that ''It is possible that information we exchanged with the US authorities alerted the CIA to Masri,"

He said German authorities passed on information about Masri because he knew Reda Seyam, a German-based Islamist radical who was of interest to the Americans and is under investigation in Germany as a suspected supporter of a terrorist organization.

In Berlin on December the 6th (see FT story above link) Condoleezza Rice, variously described as the US Secretary of State, said renditions were an important tool that had saved lives. In a rare admission, however, she acknowledged that, " the US might have made mistakes." So that's alright then.

Pic from Der Speigel of Egyptian born german citizen, Reda Sayam being arrested in Indonesia before being extradited to Germany..for more on his activities in Germany read this story in Der Speigel

LUIS POSADA CARRILES? - what has the Bush family to hide ?

Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo boarded the Cubana de Aviación CU-455 flight in Trinidad at 12:15 PM October 6, 1976, bound for Barbados. They carried on board C-4 explosives with timers secreted in a tube of toothpaste and a camera. Ricardo traveled under a forged passport using a false name. They sat in the middle of the plane. During the flight, they placed the C-4 explosives in two separate places in the plane: the rear bathroom and underneath the seat belonging to Freddy Lugo.

Aboard CU-455 were 73 persons. 57 of the passengers were Cubans. 11 of them were Guyanese medical students in Cuba. The remaining five passengers were North Koreans. Those on board averaged only 30 years of age.

Traveling with the group were 24 members of the Cuban fencing team, many of them teen-agers, fresh from gold medal victories at the Youth Fencing Championship in Caracas, Venezuela.

Lugo and Ricardo got off the plane during its brief stopover at Seawell Airport in Barbados. They later admitted under oath that they had each received special training in explosives from the CIA.

Nine minutes after take-off from Barbados, the bombs exploded and the plane caught fire. The passengers on board then lived the most horrifying ten minutes of their lives, as the plane turned into a scorching coffin.There were no survivors.

After deplaning, Lugo and Ricardo hurriedly left Seawell Airport in Barbados and checked into a local hotel under assumed names.

From the hotel, Hernán Ricardo called his bosses in Venezuela: Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.

To read the whole story about how the CIA through Luis Posada Carriles organised this bombing, and acted for the CIA in South and Central America for the CIA organising terrorist activities for over 20 years, including an attempt to assassinate Castro, go here to the story as told by Washington Attorney José Pertierra who represents the Venezuelan government in the case of Luis Posada Carriles who is now in a US jail. On April 4th 2006 the New York Times reported that Posada requested political asylum in the United States through his attorney. He is being held on accusations he entered the country illegally across the Mexican border.


Now got to Prison Planet
to read how President Chavez of Venezeula in his UN speech accused the US of double standards in fighting terror....and were hiding Luis Posada Carriles from justice in Venezuela.... something the mainstream press / TV overlooked mentioning... including the BBC who accepted that Carriles was a CIA operator in May 2005 when Carriles was finally arrested.

As
Tom Crumpacker said in the Baltimore Chronicle when Carriles was in court on an extradition warrant before a Homeland Security judge in Texas on Aug. 29.(see pic)

In an oligarchy where the important decisions are made in secret by a power elite, where the mainstream media is used to manipulate rather than inform, it's often difficult for the public to distinguish actual from virtual reality. It's apparent that Posada could supply many of the missing pieces of the puzzles of the last 45 years. He has friends in Miami and they have brought him here to resurface after 30 years. If he needed money or a place to hide comfortably, they could easily have provided him with such in another country. What we now know about his past is enough to say that he and his friends could be going public with his knowledge of CIA operations as a threat or extortion chip, perhaps to affect future US policy toward Cuba. This would explain why his legally required extradition is being delayed.


Go here for fillum of the Cubana Aviacion Incident
and see a podgy but younger Kissinger deny the US State had anything to do with the bombing.

FOOTNOTE 26th September 2006. Lord Patel regrets to report the recent death by liver cancer of Tom Crumpacker. A good guy.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Extreme Right Wrong

The Wide Awakes certainly give you value for money. Just pop over to Google News and let Google find you the daily dose of their fascist nonsense - all for free.

Whatever you might say about the American redneck right wing, as promoted by CIA you get major helpings. Like good civil servants their spelling and syntax are impeccable, the steaming rage of these keyboard warriors is carefully articulated and smells of prodigious effort and endless drafts and re-drafts. A sort of simulate simmering rage that, somehow, well ... just doesn't smell right....except of bullshit.

Today they have erected, as an Aunt Sally, poor old confused academic Juan Cole, under the eyecatching headline "The Pope Must Die" which if waved around on a street in Westminster would certainly attract the attention of PC Plod, however satirical (Ho. Ho.) the standard bearer might be.

"Shooting old women in the back, burning churches, and threatening the life of the leader of a billion Catholics is an excellent demonstration of Muslim “sensibilities” I must say." is how loudmouth and empty head Rick Moran kicks off.

This is followed by comments too many to mention or analyse ... excepting a well informed but hate filled Muslim scholar (GM ?) who points out ...."The emperor [Manuel II Paleologus] must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion“. etc., etc., " the guys at NASCAR read nothing else but the surahs and engine manuals.

Someone offers an entertaining spoof quiz which starts ..

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by
a. Superman b. Jay Leno c. Harry Potter d. a Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40
2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred
by
a. Olga Corbett b. Sitting Bull c. Arnold Schwarzenegger d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
.... you get the picture.

It doesn't appear that World War 1, or 2 was started by "Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40", the sinking of the Titanic, going off the Gold Standard and the murders of Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte (September 17th 1946) either.

Feeling low in the mornings ? ... well pop over to the The Wide Awakes and marvel how people get paid to write this sort of drivel by your Government, day after day after day. Call by Wuzzadem suppliers of our hilarious rage - ometer, and don't miss the wisdom of Six meat Buffet ,then ask yourself why Google include this crap in their "news" section.

Extreme Elmo

Under conditions of great secrecy Mattel have made 750,000 TMX Elmo Dolls. (TM = Tickle Me X = 10th Anniversary of the Elmo Doll) to retail at US$39.99. Winter Toy Wars has started.

Old Elmo Giggled and shook when tickled, hell look what TMX Elmo does ...


Three "interactive" tickle spots: chin, belly and foot


First tickle

He laughs, slaps his leg twice, falls down to a sitting position, then rocks himself back up while laughing.

Second tickle

Repeats the pattern, then sits down again, falls onto his back, kicks his feet and laughs harder.

Third tickle

Stands back up, asks to be tickled again, repeats first two patterns, rolls over onto his stomach, thumps his hand to "gales" of laughter, rolls onto his back, stands up again, laughs even harder.

He hit the major stores by surprise on Tuesday and there are already hundreds for sale on e-Bay below retail. Amazon are asking US$99.99 !!!!
Ain't technology wonderful. (6 AA batteries required) ... "The toy is so magical that we want to keep a little suspense around it," says Neil Friedman, president of Mattel Brands, which include Fisher-Price, the maker of Elmo. Watch Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America laugh. Wapo Chicago Sun Times UPI have stories .

John Reid, the Christian Communist


John Reid preached a sermon to a gathering of attentive Muslims today ....

"There is no nice way of saying this. These fanatics are looking to groom and
brainwash children, including your children, for one thing. Grooming them to
kill themselves in order to murder others. Look for the tell-tale signs now and
talk to them before their hatred grows and you risk losing them forever. In
protecting our families we are protecting our community. That is why I am asking you to be part of that fight for our common values, for this is the real conflict."

Does this explain why John Reid's son married the daughter of Glasgow's most notorious gangster and drug baron ?

It doesn't explain how 2 allegedly extremist Muslims known to the Met. MI5, MI6, CIA, Mossad, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all were allowing in the same room as Joh Reid to an invitation only meeting, whose location, and time were secret.

Nor does it explain the patient sheparding of the said gents from the room , unlike say the handling of a heckler of Jack Straw at last year's Labour Conference ... but then he was 80 years old, ...and looked like trouble.

How to kill and maim the inoccent after the War is over

Mines Advisory Group MAG is a Manchester based humanitarian group that not only clears mines and unexploded ordnance from war zones but also trains local staff.

They are now working in Lebanon having moved some teams from Iraq.

As Patrick Cockburn in Counterpunch explains in "Deadly Harvest" ,at least 83 people have died and many, especially children have suffered terrible injuries as a result of the deliberate flooding of villages with cluster bomblets.

Some Israeli officers are protesting at the use of cluster bombs, each containing 644 small but lethal bomblets, against civilian targets in Lebanon.

A commander in the MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) unit told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the army had fired 1,800 cluster rockets, spraying 1.2 million bomblets over houses and fields. "In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs," he said. "What we did there was crazy and monstrous."


Whilst Tony Blair blustered about a "lasting" cease fire the Israeli IDF sowed these deadly fruit. Whilst the UN bickered, the seeds of endless death and destruction showered on villages like Yohmor is a village set on a hillside next to the Litani River, about ten kilometres southeast of Nabatieh and just five kilometres from the blue line which MAG is helping to clean.

Pic (from MAG) shows a separated section of a cluster bomb shell after spraying it's deadly cargo. - see their website for more.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Big Sam fingered in Panorama program - by whom ?

On the 28th May BBC Online Sport had a fascinating piece on Sam Allardyce, Bolton Wanderers, no nonsense, up front, bluff, northern manager.

Basically Sam was having a dig at David Dein ...Dein was part of the six-man panel who interviewed Bolton boss Allardyce for the England coaching job.

"I don't know how much power David Dein has but he obviously has a great influence at the FA," said Big Sam.

"One minute he had nothing to do with it the next he was on the top table interviewing candidates. You'd have to ask them how that came about."

Later explaining In an interview with the News of the World, Big Sam commented: "We do know one thing, he wouldn't want the rest of the committee to go for Arsene Wenger.

"I am sure he would have batted that back with as much vigour as possible."

Meaning of course that Dein wouldn't want to lose the services of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, nor his contacts, and closeness to Jerome Anderson of SEM who acted for Charlie Nicholas, David Seaman and Ian Wright joining the club and more recently he brought in Thierry Henry and Frannie Jeffers (reputedly for an SEM cut of £650,000).

So no big surprise when someone (?) fingered Big Sam's son in the Panorama program tonight. Craig Allardyce, who has his own agency Prolific Management Limited now, but who worked for agent Mark Curtis. It was Mark who got into hot water with Arsenal when he acted as intermediary for Arsenal in the transfer of Jermaine Pennant, 15, from Notts County and was said to have paid Pennant's dad £700 to complete the £10,000 deal.

Arsenal denied they acted wrongly and distanced themselves from Curtis.

A club statement at the time said : "Arsenal Football Club has acted responsibly throughout these negotiations. Mark Curtis, who is an authorised agent, acted on behalf of Arsenal in setting up an agreement between the club and Notts County.

"Any financial transaction between Mark Curtis and Garry Pennant was totally without the knowledge and authorisation of Arsenal Football Club. Mark Curtis signed a standard agreement with Arsenal Football Club - an agreement that the club would use with any authorised agent.

Craig Allardyce acts as the official agent to Israeli national team player 24 year old Tal Ben Haim who currently plays for Bolton and was bought for an undisclosed sum from Maccabi Tel Aviv. There was great excitement in August when Ben Haim refused to train for the Israeli national team and was suspended but reinstated 2 weeks later after Big Sam's insistence.

PANORAMA CLAIMS

"In undercover filming three different agents name Sam Allardyce, a recent candidate for the England manager's job, as a corrupt manager. Two of them say that they have made illegal payments to Sam Allardyce personally," a BBC Panorama press release says.

"Peter Harrison, an agent known to be close to Allardyce, is secretly filmed saying that he bribes Sam by offering to pay his son Craig: He says: "If I say 'Listen Sam, I'll give Craig some money'... he'll say 'Yeah, okay, we'll do a deal.'"

"Panorama has also uncovered that three different Bolton transfer signings (of defender Tal Ben Haim, Japanese star Hidi Nakata, and goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi - 23 yr old Omani who joined from SFK Lyn of Norway.) involved secret payments from agents to Craig Allardyce. The programme understands that Craig Allardyce received around £50,000 ($A130,000) for the deal involving Ben Haim. At the time Craig was contractually banned from doing any Bolton deals.

"In the case of two of these deals (Nakata and Ali Al-Habsi), the agent secretly paying Craig was Peter Harrison."

"Craig admitted to BBC reporter Alex Millar that his father Sam Allardyce did know about these payments, saying: 'Yeah course he knew course he knew... I've never hidden anything.'"

September - bad month for Presidents

On September 19, 1881, after only serving a few months in office, James A. Garfield became the second president to be assassinated.

On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot the recently elected President Garfield in a train station next to Capitol Hill. Garfield languished three months before dying On September 19, 1881.

Guiteau had an amazing history of religious hysteria, sexual depravity and thievery..and wuddya bleeve it.. a loner.

Here is a site that tells of Alexander Bell's attempts to locate the fatal bullet using his newly discovered capacity to amplify sound from electrically charged wires. A clumsy first attempt at a sort of X ray or at least mapping of the internal organs.

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley visited Buffalo, N.Y., for the Pan-American Exposition, a celebration of the United States’ emergence as an industrial and imperial power.In the crowd a a self-described anarchist, Leon Czoglosz advanced and shot the President.

Historian Eric Rauchway argues in his book Murdering McKinley that the assassination of William McKinley by Czoglosz, had far-reaching social consequences. In coming to terms with this national trauma, American opinion-makers faced up to some of the consequences of the country’s rapid industrialization: inequalities of wealth, overcrowding of cities, massive immigration. And they developed new public policies, from regulations of industry to school reforms, as a result.

Rauchway said that whatever the killer’s mental state, the act of shooting McKinley followed a brutal logic; it was cruel for its rationality, not for its senselessness.

By understanding the horrible logic of political violence, one can find a path between the dead ends of incomprehension and rationalization.

It is one of the coincidences of history that Lord Patel was lying on his bed reading an article in the Scientific American arguing that modern surgical practice could have saved McKinley's life, that a fellow student burst into his room to announce the death of JFK, another fall time faller.

A friend says that Dubya misses the assassins bullet because ... well look who is just a heartbeat away ... No wonder they are never seen in public together.

Pope is a Muslim shock !

Reid: I've no ambition to be PM

BBC ONline report that Home Secretary John Reid has said he has "no personal ambition to attain any other high office" when asked if he wanted to succeed Tony Blair.

Globalisation - a winning solution in Uruguay

This is a lengthy tale but bear with me.

PART 1 . The Globalistas

Oy Metsä-Botnia Ab - was founded in 1973, and is jointly owned by :

M-real Oyj, is a high quality paper producer with headquarters in Espoo, Finland, and a presence in over 70 countries and approximately 15,500 employees with sales revenues of 5.2 BN Euros.

Metsäliitto Osuuskunta, the tenth biggest forest industry group in the world /wood supply / wood products industry / pulp production /and tissues, With sales of 8.6 billion euro they have 30,000 employees in 30 countries. Metsäliitto Cooperative is a cooperative organisation for Finnish forest owners and has over 130,000 members.


UPM-Kymmene Oyj. have 22 paper mills in eight countries: Austria, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, the UK and the USA, 31,000 employees and sales of 8.6 Bn Euros to 3,200 customers in 120 countries. The company was the result of merging 3 major Finnish paper manufacturers and The new company started its operations May 1, 1996. They are quoted on the Helsinki and NY stock Exchanges.The first quarter profit in 2006 was 181 Mn Euros.

The joint company Oy Metsä-Botnia Ab have pulp mills in Finland in Joutseno, Kaskinen, Kemi, Rauma (which uses chlorine free technology (TCF)), and Äänekoski it manufactures high quality bleached pulp grades from softwoods, birch, and aspen pulp tissue.under the name Botnia. Botnia's pulp grades have been developed for the manufacture of high quality printing papers, folding box boards, and tissue.

Large-scale eucalyptus plantations were introduced in Uruguay in 1988, promoted mainly by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with the active participation of forestry companies to replace hardwood logging.

At the time, the price of pulpwood on the world market was $60 a ton (it is now $23 to $28 per ton,)and Botnia established a company in Uruguay Compañia Forestal Oriental S.A. (FOSA) in Uruguay, which was first established by Shell/Kymmene to promote eucalyptus cultivation which had commenced planting in 1991. Eucalyptus is a genus of trees confined originally to Australasia , however the fast growth of eucalyptus plantations (8 years to harvest at up to 90 feet high - which relates to extreme water demands) provides low cost high quality feedstock for bleached hardwood pulp. FOSA with partners UPM (38.6 %) and Finnfund (1.4 %) own 100.000 hectares of land (400 sq. miles) , of which 60.000 is good-quality eucalyptus forest that has been planted on grassland. FOSA is one of the three big forest owners in Uruguay and is certified under under the FSC standard (Forest Stewardship Standard).

María Selva Ortiz of REDES - member of the Friends of the Earth non-governmental environmental network says foreign-owned large-scale plantations of eucalyptus occupy more than 700,000 hectares (2,700 square miles) in Uruguay.

In conjunction with this investment it was decided to build a pulp mill at Fray Bentos (pop 20,000) on the Uruguay River, which is Argentine / Uruguay border. An environmental impact assessment for the pulp mill as well as an evaluation of its socio-economic impacts were started in November 2003.

This US$1 Bn. pulp mill project is the biggest industrial investment in Uruguay's history and is estimated to grow Uruguay's GNP by 1.6 per cent. The project is also the biggest industrial private sector investment by Finland abroad.

The plant will incoporate a Kyoto Protocol / Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) 32 MW biomass-based low carbin emission electricity generator on the mill site using the latest technology to use black liquor from the pulping process for steam and electricity generation in the recovery boiler. This saving in greenhouse gases translates into sales / income when traded against the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

This project is designed to generate surplus electricity which can be used outside the mill site. The amount of surplus electricity is estimated at 270 GWh annually. Enough to supply the electricity needs of 150,000 Uruguayan homes.

Another major transnational corporation, the U.S.- based forestry giant Weyerhaeuser, with partner Global Forest Partners a US based forest investments house, has purchased roughly 135,000 hectares (521 square miles) mostly grassland, since 1997. Two-thirds of it has been planted with loblolly pine and fast-growing eucalyptus and recently announced plans to invest $1.2 billion to expand its Uruguayan pulp operations.

Weyerhaeuser (NYSE: WY) is a multinational corporation based in Washington, United States. The company is now the second largest pulp and paper company in the world, soon to be second, with the acquisition of Domtar Inc. on August 23, 2006 $3.3 billion US cash-and-stock deal. Thye have manufacturing operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Mexico, Ireland, France and Uruguay, among others. It is the world's largest private owner of softwood timberland, managing 38 million acres (154,000 km²) in five countries.

It is the third largest owner in the United States, behind Plum Creek Timber and International Paper of timber lands. Weyerhaeuser has approximately 55,200 employees in 18 countries (primarily in the U.S. and Canada).

Finnish group Stora Enso (quoted on Helsinki / Stockholm exchanges and ADR's NYSE) have sales of 13.2 Bn. Euros in 2005,with 46,000 employees in more than 40 countries on five continents.The company has been buying land in the Rio Negro region (250 KM from port of Montevideo) region and have assembled to date at least 56,000 hectares and are planting 50% eucalyptus and 50% pine. They already have established Veracel in Brazil with their Brazil-based partner Veracruz with a plantation / pulp mill which came into operation last year with 5 500 employees and annual pulp production 900 000 tonnes of pulp annually (to reach 1 150 000 t/y) and 79 000 ha of their own plantations. Veracel 2 in Rio Grande do Sul is on the drawing Boards.

Stora Enso signed an agreement in November 2005, with Gaofeng Forest - Pulp & Paper Company that will enable Stora Enso to increase its land concession rights and wholly owned plantations in southern China to approximately 60,000 ha.

Empresa Nacional de Celulosa de España (ENCE) is a company quoted on the Spanish Stock Exchange and is the number one owner of Eucalypt timberland in Europe as well as being the leading producer in Europe and number two in the world of eucalyptus-based pulp.

ENCE's Uruguayan subsidiary EUFORES has been a pioneer within the forestry development of Uruguay. As well as establishing plantations, EUFORES manages nature zones and old forest reserves, water-meadows and palm groves. It is establishing a conservation and breeding ground for endangered species in the surroundings of M´Bopicuá.

The company's forest resources cover 53,000 hectares, of which 94% are its own property. EUFORES is the largest exporter of pulping wood in Uruguay.

ENCE announced plans to build a pulp mill at Fray Bentos last year with a capacity of 500,000 tons of pulp annually (1/3rd the size of the Botnia plant which will be the wrold's largest).


PART 2 The Globalised

Uruguay with a population of 3.4 Million rarely hits headlines unless their football team does well. Figures published by the Central Bank today show that the Uruguayan economy is booming, overall the economy grew 8.4 % in Jan/June '06 compared with last year and 3.5% growth in the 2nd Qtr over the 1st Quarter.

In June the Bank reported GDP growth of 7.2 % over 2005.The IMF raised its 2006 economic growth forecast for Uruguay to 5 percent from 4.6 percent.

In Jan / June this year , manufacturing output jumped 21.1 % from last year and exports rose 16.2 % to $1.88 billion.The construction sector grew 13.4 % due esentially to the building of a new power plant by the state energy company and public works in Rio Negro province, ENCE and Botnia are building their pulp mills.

The farm sector, grew 5.4 % in the first six months of the year due to an increase in beef production and exports.

In 1988, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), initiated the planting of eucalyptus plantations. Pulpwood the economists noted was US$60 a tonne, demand was high and people like thw World Bank were being accused of financing tropical rain forest destruction. It was claimed that indiscriminate logging of trees for pulp production around the world, was consuming 15 million hectares (58,000 square miles) annually.

In the climate controlled offices of the paper manufacturers in distant Spain and frosty Finland. Uruguay appeared as an ideal location for the fast growing and fast cropping Eucalypts. Montevideo pledged full compliance and provided forestry companies with generous subsidies, soft credits, and tax exemptions. Over 12 years, the Uruguayan government’s support for this sector exceeded $500 million in tax exemptions and direct disbursements, an amount representing almost 4 percent of the country’s annual GDP. To facilitate the transportation and export of the wood, the governments of the day made further investments in new ports, bridges, roads, and railway lines.

Part of the grand plan was of course the building of pulp mills - hungry, like the trees, for water. The World Bank, lobbed loans of US£200 Mn. each to Botnia (The Orion Mill) and ENCE (The CMB Mill) who will jointly "invest" US$2 Bn. This is the largest direct private investment ever in the country’s history (Population 3.4m) , according to figures released by Minister of the Economy Danilo Astori and Ministe of Industry Jorge Lepra.

Much of the Uruguayan economic and governmental leadership, supports the project and is actively encouraging this agro-industrial project, A Cumulative Impact STudy comparing the plans with Best Intrenational practice in Canada and Scandinavia show that whilst there is pollution it will appear anywhere you build the factory.

Principally the main resistance to the project is Argentina, smarting, it is said that the project is not theirs.

Surely this is an ideal project, it promotes sustainability, replaces logged forests, provides national income, employment in construction and continuing development.

Of course, much of the investment dollars end up in the developed world for the new generation of pulping plants which utilise the black liquor re-cycling which has been invented in Scandinavia and whose re-use will provide sustainable low cost, low emission electricity for the local population.

It is an irrefutable fact that the economic benefits are coming through .... and the pulping plants are not yet complete.

Forget gas prices watch the coffee price

Don't expect your overpriced tipple at Starbucks (NASDAQ : SBUX) to decline any day soon. Robusta coffee prices have hit 7 year highs.

The International Coffee Organisation (ICO)'s indicator price for Robustas reached a level of 78.68 US cents/lb on 22 August 2006, the highest price recorded in the last seven years... and it continues to rise in September.

That is 104% up for August compared with 2005....and it takes 12 months for prices to reach the street.

Like the oil market fluctuations there are a multitude of real and imagined reasons that traders justify an increase..


1. Cutback in exports from Vietnam, due to problems with the climate. Vitenam is now world's biggest grower of the beans used to make instant coffee and espresso,

2. Generally reductions in exports, especially from Africa.

3. A decline in the quality of some of the Robusta stocks held in free port warehouses, particularly in Trieste Italy due to mould formation after floods .

4. Some certified stocks in the London futures market (LIFFE) have been reduced.

5. Cutbacks in the Indian market.

6. Growth in internal Brazilian consumption, reducing stocks for export.

Even so world production estimates have increased for year 2006/7 to 122 Million bags. Brazil which has a bi-ennial crop this year will see 41.6 million bags which will drop back 6 Mn bags next season, and sustain prices.

The International Coffee Organization forecasts a 2 % increase in global coffee consumption to 7 Mn. tons this year and a 1.5 % increase annually in the next ten years.

``If we continue with this trend of a 1.5 % increase in consumption per year, in 10 years the world will need 145 million bags and today they don't exist,'' said Nestor Osorio, executive director of the London-based International Coffee Organisation.

Consumers may not have noticed how shelf prices in the supermarkets for instant coffees based on the Robustas have been rising up to 5% in the last few months. Lattes, capuccinos and all the frothy gunk the trendy cafeterias sell is based on the arabica bean which is dearer but whose price hasn't risen as steeply, but Java coffee recently stuck their prices up 5%.

The continuing demand has meant that the differential in price between Robustas and Arabica and Other Milds (used to make up blends) has fallen from 60.81 US cents/lb in January 2006, was 40.5 cents in June, 42.92 cents in July and has fallen to 38.14 US cents.The composite price for ARabica / Milds in August was 95.78 cents.

No changes are foreseen until the arrival of new Vietnamese coffee from crop year 2006/07 beginning in October 2006.

All this is good news for Nestlé where soaring demand for espresso coffee in Europe has forced thewm to plan for a new Euros 95 Mn. Nespresso factory in Switzerland.

Sales of Nespresso - hermetically sealed aluminium capsules containing ground coffee, have risen more than 30 per cent annually for the last five years. Nespresso capsules are placed in a specially designed Nespresso Smart Machine, penetrating the capsule with a jet of heated water.Nestlé claims the Nespresso capsule protects the coffee from air, light and moisture preserving aromas which coffee bags don't.

Nespresso, dubbed coffee's answer to teabags by their PR / Marketing hoopla merchants, has latched on to the coffee "culture" boosted by Starbucks and the rest of the High Street cafetiers like Café Nero and Costa Coffee.

These chains have also fostered a consumer shift in Britain towards freshly ground "style" coffee, by making Italian-style espresso shots the base of their coffee drinks.

Mintel say retail coffee sales are up in the UK by 5-7%.

Starbucks 5 year share price

Sunny Sweeney has turned up

Whistling Bob Harris will feature her again on September 21st on Radio 2. Get your CD US$20 Dld Pay Pal from www.sunnysweeney.com

She sings

"I'm the next big nothing
You won't see my name on on MTV
No-one knows my name in Tennessee"

Absolutely wrong sunshine.
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Despite what George said, US Prison diaspora grows - now 13,000 without charge

George Bush's peformance last week in explaining how there were secret prisons run by the US abroad and that a handful (14) of their detainees were now in Guantanmo bay may well have confused some people about the size of the US prison diaspora.

AP report that there are currently some 14,000 prisoners held without stated reason , trial or even the knowledge of their families and friends.

When the US recently closed Abu Ghraib prison and handed it over to the Iraqi authorities it was empty, as the 3000 prisoners there were moved to a US$ 60 MN. state of the art prison at Camp Cropper near Baghdad Airport. The US Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just "security detainees" held "for imperative reasons of security," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry. Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces,"

As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put a total of 1,445 on trial (including Saddam an dhis chums) , convicting 1,252. In the last week of August, for example, 38 were sentenced on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to murder, for the shooting of a U.S. Marine.Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, without charge, or explanation.

AP report that by September 9, fewer than 1,500 of the Iraq prisoners have been tried by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. At Guantanamo Bay despite the heralded departures 455 prisoners remain of 770 sent there. So far only ten of these prisoners have been charged with crimes by the much criticised military tribunals.

Detainee mistreatment by US forces and the CIA in Iraq alone has led to more than 800 investigations and investigations on the actions of over 250 US military staff and there have to date been 89 courts martial.

In 14 of 34 cases, someone has been punished for the killings of detainees; the harshest sentence was 5 months. Of 98 detainee deaths , the cause has only been determined in half the cases - including 3 suicides made known at Guantanamo Bay in June.

The situation in Afghanistan is unclear , about 500 detainees are believed to be held mostly Afghans, but also apparently Arabs, Pakistanis and Central Asians.

The United States have said they will cede control of its Afghan detainees by early next year, 5 years after invading Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaida's base and bring down the Taliban government. Meanwhile, the prisoners of Bagram (27 miles N. of Kabul) exist in a legal vacuum like that elsewhere in the U.S. detention network.

"There's been a silence about Bagram, and much less political discussion about it," said Richard Bennett, chief U.N. human rights officer in Afghanistan.

Freed detainees tell how in cages of 16 inmates they are forbidden to speak to each other. They wear the same orange jumpsuits and shaven heads as the terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, but lack even the scant legal rights granted inmates at that Cuba base. In some cases, they have been held without charge for three to four years, rights workers say.

The Guradian
on Friday February 18, 2005 reported details of documents the ACLU had obtained about detainee abuse at Bagram and also affidavits from prisoners who went on the Guantanamo Bay.

Hussain Adbulkadr Youssouf Mustafa, a Palestinian living in Jordan, told the lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, that he was sodomised by US soldiers during his detention at Bagram air force base in 2002.

He claims to have been blindfolded, tightly handcuffed, gagged and had his ears plugged, forced to bend down over a table by two soldiers, with a third soldier pressing his face down on the table, and to have had his trousers pulled down.

"They forcibly rammed a stick up my rectum," he reports. "It was excruciatingly painful ... Only when the pain became overwhelming did I think I would ever scream. But I could not stop screaming when this happened."

In a second affidavit, the Jordanian citizen, Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed Al Deemawi, detained from March 15 2002 to March 31 2004, says that during a 40-day period of detention at Bagram he was threatened with dogs, stripped and photographed "in shameful and obscene positions" and placed in a cage with a hook and a hanging rope. He says he was hung from this hook, blindfolded, for two days although he was occasionally given hour-long "breaks".

As Cofer Black, the former director of the CIA's counter-terrorist branch, (see picture at top) said in evidence to a US Congressional intelligence committee September 26, 2002: "All you need to know: there was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11... After 9/11 the gloves come off."

It was of course the same guy who speaking on August 15th 2001 to the Department of Defense’s annual Convention of Counterterrorism, “We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die, and it could be in the US.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Panorama exposes the corruption at the heart of European football ...again.

BBC Panorama are going to expose more of the shady dealings in bringing cheap , but superb African footballers to Europe through surrogate football clubs in Belgium and then through a network of agents and bent managers , including the UK , to sell them on at a huge profit.

Lord Patel exposed the seamy side of Arsenal recently and the activities of David Dein. Nothing happens, UEFA carefully looks the other way, and lets young Africans get treated like whores.

In the Panorama fillum a Belgian from the Charleroi club says - we bring in 100 Africans, Burkina / Nigeria wherever make them play pick the best and say pick the 5 best and then send them back to Africa.

Lord Stevens , when he isn't discovering why the Daily Express isn't running more stories about Ladu Di's death is"investigating" . don't hold your breath.

For the truth about Arsenal and David Dein ...go here

Incidentally the day after the story broke 2nd June 2006 , Dein who then sat on the board of the FA as one of 4 representatives of the FA Premier League clubs on the Football Association board was replaced by David Gill CEO of Manchester United F.C.Dein continues to sit as representative of the FA Premier League on UEFA's committee for club competitions and is a member of the FA Council.

Dein is a leading member of the Jewish community in Totteridge, great friend of the Karaoke King, Lord Levy and also a major football agent and founder of Sports Entertainment and Media Group Ltd (SAM)whose clients include Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Rio Ferdinand.

He also has family ties. Son Darren a trained solicitor, is a consultant for Sports Entertainment and Media Group Ltd and is married to the beautiful daughter Sara, of David Buchler ex-executive vice chairman of Tottenham Hotspur FC. SAM also represent Luiz Felipe Scolari, who Dein was keen to take over from Sven as England Manger, but finally refused the job.

No doubt there will be a few in English (and Scottish) football who will sleep none too well tonight.

POSTSCRIPT regarding the Totteridge Four

Keen eyed readers will recall that Langbar (formerly Crown Corporation) suspended from AIM in October last year is is currently led by recovery expert David Buchler, who was called in to salvage something for shareholders, principally £365 Mn said to be in Brazil.

On a stormy night in December 2003, a colourful group of international businessmen gathered at Villa Castagnola, a grand hotel on the shore of Lake Lugano in Switzerland.Among those present were Crown’s chairman Mariusz Rybak, a Canadian technology executive, and Jean-Pierre Regli, a Swiss-Italian banker and the company’s co-founder.Present were Barry Townsley and Simon Fox of stockbroker Insinger Townsley. Read on how £150MN of the company's money was handled.

Well since then Barry Townsley has lent £1Mn at least to the Labour Party, been refused a peerage, and his very good friend Lord Levy arrested by the Police (and his computers arrested as well). Jean Pierre Regli is currently in Pentonville working out a six months sentence.(see link above to Langbar)... for coughing up neither the required information or the money.

Long way from football, but how lucky David Buchler, father in law of Darren Dein, also a friend to bouffant haired, stack heeled Lord Levy, Townsley et al is acting as insolvency practitioner... something to talk about in the match interval in the cosy intimacy of the Directors box no doubt.

A Ludicrous Diversion ?

Lord Patel sent an e-mail to ludicrousdiversion@hotmail.com , the
point of contact offered to viewers of their Google fillum "Ludicrous Diversion" (20,054 viewers to date) ....

which read, inter alia ..

The Fillum asks many questions and provides no answers, other than wide and often unspoken inferences.

One question to which an answer would be welcome , is, who was involved in making the fillum ?

Lord Patel has received a reply from LudDiv, the wonderful and brief conflation of their fillum title suggesting the terrorist activities of Nick Ludd with military strength and organisation.

Here it is....(with annotations by my staff of keen eyed post-modernist constructionists, semioticists and language analysts, in alternate colour)
---------
"Hi - Thanks for your kind consideration of our film.

We are citizens whose only comittment is finding the truth for the familes(sic) of all the victims, and also justice for all the Muslims who now find themselves under orweliian (sic) scrutiny.

We also want a world for our children to grow up in which is free from fearmongering and prejudice, especially from our own government, police and media."

Well, no arguments there, Mom and Apple Pie being popular pretty well everywhere.

"Onto 7/7, the problem with suggesting theories is that in the minds of the general public, one is using the internet to simply pit onesleft (sic) up against the opinions of the mainstream news."

Hey, Hey, the Gubment line is clear, 4 young men, Islamic nutcases, blew themselves up on London Transport. Period. The rest is mere detail. There ARE alternative explanations, but, principally because there is little reliable information available to us there is, as it were, (at present) no Unified Field Theory... but there are some highly credible scenarios... even the poorest scientific examination requires a set of working hypotheses.

"In addition, speculation that any of the bombers were actually even in luton (sic) or london (sic) that day is presupposing an involvement which may be false."

Well the fact that the relatives have accepted (without public demur) the mangled remains of their "loved ones" retrieved from the bomb sites is difficult to argue with .... and if they are wrong, then these guys have apparently shuffled off this mortal coil somehow. Is someone (seriously) suggesting , Hey let's bomb the train, organise these hire cars, fiddle phoney CCTV at Luton, etc etc and then bump these 4 patsies off ... surely a complication too far. KISS. Which you then accept ...

"Were these events to have been staged it would have been too risky to have the possibility of any survivors through a malfunction of any element of the plot."

Remember Jack Ruby and Oswald ?... Fuck up Factors are ALWAYS factored in at the planning stage.

"The perpetrators of this atrocity would not have taken any risks at all, and it is our understanding that many of the apparent discrepancies are likely to be deliberate misdirections, such is the sophistication inherent in a false flag operation of global significance such as 7/7."

Nothing in life is risk free, even for State terrists, a smash up on the Motorway from Leeds to Luton ?

The likely perpetrators are invariably:-

1 Those that control the security which needs to be withdrawn/controlled.
2 Those that stand to gain

Spot on. No fault with the analysis. Cui bono as Mr Cicero said, in another time and place.

Who benefits ? Well it certainly feeds the fear factory - enabling the enabling of even more State control by legislation ... and the associated subset of demonising and scapegoating Muslims (especially young males)

"Let's keep in touch - LD"

I certainly will. The question remains...

" .....who was involved in making the fillum ?"

The syntax and spelling is left for the judgement of the reader - it doesn't mesh with the slick professional approach to making the fillum. Unless inserted as a gloss on a draft, to imply or infer a certain happy go lucky agit-prop, fuck you lifestyle.

I think the Osama Bin Laden videos via Al Jazeera come with better credentials.... at least using only stills (apart from what the TV drama people call establishing long shots etc.,) they have no problems with lip synch... although there is a nice (b)loop of Sir Ian Blair.

IN CONCLUSION

Here at Patel Towers we are reminded of Marvell, "This coyness lady were no crime, but at my back I always hear, Time's winged chariot ...etc". By all means produce anonymous fillums ignoring vital aspects of the known data about 7/7 and associated events - the Israeli connection perhaps ? Choose to ignore the alternative scenarios that provide alternative explanations , prior to the elusive and probably unlikely Public Enquiry. Hide your identity(ies). Leave your motives unclear, which from the perspective of another seeker of the Truth about 7/7 , somewhat deflating, which will ultimately deter other such Truth seekers - as exemplified by one viewers response on the 9/11 blog forum - and they are pretty sceptical bunch by definition.

Of course your reluctance for public identification may shield other motives, other people, other ideas, other objectives, different goals and ultimately hide the true identity of the people who organised the death of 52 people in London on 7th July 2006.

If it doesn't, tell us who you are.

SO SMART ARSE WHAT IS YOUR UNBRIDLED FANTASY ?

Those anxious to know Lord Patel's views on the modus operandi of the 7/7 bombers see his ideas ,which started with the post July 15th "Another bloody silly conspiracy theory" one week after the event and also "Dead Men Tell no Tales" of the same date at "Investigating Imperialism".

Who was responsible? Folks in control - well mix Israeli State controlled organisations, neo - cons with connections to them and the military industrial complex - such as say, Grumman Northrop who NOW run the UK prime Identity system IDENT1 which used to be run by the Met. Police until April 2005.

Folks on the ground ? Mix in the ex Special forces of several sorts and backgrounds, various MI5 / 6 operators, "ex" spooks, Asian muslims from the Leeds area hauled in for questioning and released quietly without charge, White thugs AKA Muslims in (what was) Al Muhajiroun in Luton + the odd drug baron(ess).

Proof - absolutely Fuck all. Same as the Gubment fantasy. There is however a coherent and believable basis for the hypothesis..some story is true, because those people are dead.... and waiting around for an "official" enquiry won't produce it.

Which is a step up on an admittedly slick graphic represenation of some of the known "facts" cobbled with a litany of the all pervading power of the UK State and a voice full of gravitas and an an upbeat soundtrack that Mike Moran might have had a hand in.
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Sunday, September 17, 2006

Trop de meubles

Now for a fillum you should all like. Know whaddimean ?? ...and you don't have to put it together when you get home. Posted by Picasa

Iraq : 165 dead - and one from the neck upwards

In the last 4 days the known death toll in Baghdad is at least 165. The Los Angles Times reports U.S. personnel were investigating sites where corpses were recently found and the senior American military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said scores of mutilated bodies found in the middle of the week appeared to be “from murder execution-style type activity.”

There is concern that the merciless, brutal killings, of tortured, blindfolded people have been committed by the 42,200 Shiite-dominated US trained government security forces in areas already secured by U.S. and Iraqi troops — inside jobs, in effect.

Caldwell is the fantasist in the NYT in August who was reported saying ....

“If we were willing to accept the high levels of casualties that occur in the city each month, then the Iraqi security forces could have continued handling the situation,”

...and then added ... as a further insult to the reader's intelligence...

“I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence.”

Just remember Abu Ghraib was handed over to these Iraqi security forces 2 weeks ago, which they celebrated 4 days later by a mass hanging of 27 people. Posted by Picasa

Indian Vultures - the Future looks bright - but not for Zidane ?

The Royal Society for Protection of birds has issued a press release about the banning of diclofenac (Voltaren is the commercial name) in India which was identified as having almost destroyed the Indian subcontinents vulture population ingesting the drug from dead cows. This cheap (off patent) Non Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug, (NSAID) livestock drug has now been banned and is ideally replaced by the use of meloxicam, said to be equally effective and not harmful to the (now ) tiny vulture population.

They say,

Vultures have for centuries played an irreplaceable role in cleaning the millions of carcasses of domestic animals left at special carcass dumps throughout south Asia but particularly in India, Pakistan and Nepal.


..but omit to mention they also clean the corpses of dead humans, left by different religious sects( e.g The Parsees of Bombay (Mumbai) of the Stones of Silence Temple,) for cleansing by vultures. This cleansing is recognised as preventing the spread from animals to humans of TB, Brucellosis and Anthrax, and also preventing the spread of animal diseases such as Foot and Mouth, rinderpest and pleuro-pneumonia.

They also point out the severe economic impact the loss of vultures has had.

The collapse in vulture populations has affected thousands of leather tanners, bone collectors, craftsmen and glue makers who rely on cleaned carcasses for their livelihoods.

Banning diclofenac and an intensive breeding program will they hope soon result in an increased vulture population.

DID INDIAN BONES CAUSE BSE / CJD ???

Almost 1 year ago on Sept 5th Lord Patel brouGth the attention of readers to an alarming article in the Lancet 2/9/06 in which Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent in England and his daughter Nancy, of the University of Edinburgh that BSE in the UK may have been caused by the tonnes of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed which also may have contained the remains of humans infected with CJD.

Lord Patel remarked..."India, a desperately poor country has been exporting animal feed to the UK ? We should remember what The Rt. Hon. Stephen Dorrell, Minister of State for Health Her Majesty's Government said on 3rd December 1995 "There is no conceivable risk of BSE being transmitted from cows to people."

Indian neurologists Susarla Shanka and P. Satishchandra of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore
, rebut the idea in another article in the same issue of the Lancet which appeared to be motivated more by national pride than clear scientific reasoning.

Since then there has been utter and total silence on the topic in the UK and the suggestions of Alan Colchester and his daughter. Bones are still being imported from India and can be used in fertiliser products.. garden bonemeal ... is it impossible that they end up in animal feed ? Again ?

Lord Patel has earlier written about the death of the Indian vultures , 18/02/04 Vultures, Dying faster than the Dodo: Asian vulture populations collapse due to unregulated use of Veterinary medicine and as a result approached the UK Venture Capitalists to see if these modestly filthy rich might see their way to chipping in a few sovs for the vultures and a breeding program. Eventually the Vulture Capitalists came back with a very firm no - they had no desire to be identified with Vultures. Evidently better returns bunging the Labour Party.

FOOTBALLING FOOTNOTE

In a report in the Financial Times (London) of January 27th 2004, Ralph Rogers reports that FIFA’s Player of the Year, the French footballer Zinedine Zidane, who plays for the Italian club Juventus, is being investigated for the long term use of 4 different drugs, which although not proscribed are considered to have performance enhancing effects. One of them is diflocane taken as Voltaren tablets, which Rogers states are widely abused by footballers.

The Juventus doping trial heard evidence of widespread use of Neoton, among other substances, in Italian football. Zinedine Zidane, admitted in court to taking it and a list of other “products” to cope with his heavy playing schedule at Juve (“They told me they were vitamins”).

During the trial, prosecutors probed the unusually high incidence extremely rare terminal disease of the nervous system known as ALS, aka ‘Lou Gehrig’s disease’ named after a famous NY Yankees baseball player who suffered from it.

Parallels were found between the diseases afflicting Italian players and those suffered by athletes in East Germany, who were subjected to a State-sponsored drug programme by the communist authorities throughout the 1970s and ’80s

One case highlighted was that of Gianluca Signorini, a defender with Roma, Genoa and Parma during the nineties, who was totally paralysed by ALS and eventually died aged 42 in November 2002. “They injected me with a lot of Voltaren for the ongoing pains in the shin and Neoton and Esafosfina directly into the veins before the matches,” he told Italy’s Panorama magazine (Zidane was given all three). See 2001 Channel 4 report Pic of Gianlucca in a wheelchair with his wife and family just before his death

Maybe that contibuted to Zidane's World Cup madness ?

(C) Very Seriously Disorganised Criminals 2002/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 - copy anything you wish